No Arabic abstract
The shape instability of magnetic domain walls under current is investigated in a ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)(As,P) film with perpendicular anisotropy. Domain wall motion is driven by the spin transfer torque mechanism. A current density gradient is found either to stabilize domains with walls perpendicular to current lines or to produce finger-like patterns, depending on the domain wall motion direction. The instability mechanism is shown to result from the non-adiabatic contribution of the spin transfer torque mechanism.
The magnetostatic interaction between magnetic domain walls (DWs) in adjacent nanotracks has been shown to produce strong inter-DW coupling and mutual pinning. In this paper, we have used electrical measurements of adjacent spin-valve nanotracks to follow the positions of interacting DWs. We show that the magnetostatic interaction between DWs causes not only mutual pinning, as observed till now, but that a travelling DW can also induce the depinning of DWs in near-by tracks. These effects may have great implications for some proposed high density magnetic devices (e.g. racetrack memory, DW logic circuits, or DW-based MRAM).
The behavior of antiferromagnetic domain wall (ADW) against the background of a periodic ferroelectric domain structure has been investigated. It has been shown that the structure and the energy of ADW change due to the interaction with a ferroelectric domain structure. The ferroelectric domain boundaries play the role of pins for magnetic spins, the spin density changes in the vicinity of ferroelectric walls. The ADW energy becomes a periodical function on a coordinate which is the position of ADW relative to the ferroelectric domain structure. It has been shown that the energy of the magnetic domain wall attains minimum values when the center of the ADW coincides with the ferroelectric wall and the periodic ferroelectric structure creates periodic coercitivity for the ADW. The neighbouring equilibrium states of the ADW are separated by a finite potential barrier.
The control of domain walls or spin textures is crucial for spintronic applications of antiferromagnets. Despite many efforts, it has been challenging to directly visualize antiferromagnetic domains or domain walls with nanoscale resolution, especially in magnetic field. Here, we report magnetic imaging of domain walls in several uniaxial antiferromagnets, the topological insulator MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ family and the Dirac semimetal EuMnBi$_2$, using cryogenic magnetic force microscopy (MFM). Our MFM results reveal higher magnetic susceptibility or net moments inside the domain walls than in domains. Domain walls in these antiferromagnets form randomly with strong thermal and magnetic field dependences. The direct visualization of domain walls and domain structure in magnetic field will not only facilitate the exploration of intrinsic phenomena in topological antiferromagnets, but also open a new path toward control and manipulation of domain walls or spin textures in functional antiferromagnets.
We explore universal behaviors of magnetic domain wall driven by the spin-transfer of an electrical current, in a ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)(As,P) thin film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. For a current direction transverse to domain wall, the dynamics of the thermally activated creep regime and the depinning transition are found to be compatible with a self-consistent universal description of magnetic field induced domain wall dynamics. This common universal behavior, characteristic of the so-called quenched Edwards-Wilkinson universality class, is confirmed by a complementary and independent analysis of domain wall roughness. However, the tilting of domain walls and the formation of facets is produced by the directionality of interaction with the current, which acts as a magnetic field only in the direction transverse to domain wall.
The chirality-dependent magnetoelectric properties of Neel-type domain walls in iron garnet films is observed. The electrically driven magnetic domain wall motion changes the direction to the opposite with the reversal of electric polarity of the probe and with the chirality switching of the domain wall from clockwise to counterclockwise. This proves that the origin of the electric field induced micromagnetic structure transformation is inhomogeneous magnetoelectric interaction.