No Arabic abstract
Chiral spin textures at the interface between ferromagnetic and heavy nonmagnetic metals, such as Neel-type domain walls and skyrmions, have been studied intensively because of their great potential for future nanomagnetic devices. The Dyzaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) is an essential phenomenon for the formation of such chiral spin textures. In spite of recent theoretical progress aiming at understanding the microscopic origin of the DMI, an experimental investigation unravelling the physics at stake is still required. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the close correlation of the DMI with the anisotropy of the orbital magnetic moment and with the magnetic dipole moment of the ferromagnetic metal. The density functional theory and the tight-binding model calculations reveal that asymmetric electron occupation in orbitals gives rise to this correlation.
The interface between a ferromagnet (FM) or antiferromagnet (AFM) and a heavy metal (HM) results in an antisymmetric exchange interaction known as the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI) which favors non-collinear spin configurations. The iDMI is responsible for stabilizing noncollinear spin textures such as skyrmions in materials with bulk inversion symmetry. Interfacial DMI values have been previously determined theoretically and experimentally for FM/HM interfaces, and, in this work, values are calculated for the metallic AFM MnPt and the insulating AFM NiO. The heavy metals considered are W, Re, and Au. The effects of the AFM and HM thicknesses are determined. The iDMI values of the MnPt heterolayers are comparable to those of the common FM materials, and those of NiO are lower.
Topological defects such as magnetic solitons, vortices, Bloch lines, and skyrmions have started to play an important role in modern magnetism because of their extraordinary stability, which can be exploited in the production of memory devices. Recently, a novel type of antisymmetric exchange interaction, namely the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), has been uncovered and found to influence the formation of topological defects. Exploring how the DMI affects the dynamics of topological defects is therefore an important task. Here we investigate the dynamic domain wall (DW) under a strong DMI and find that the DMI induces an annihilation of topological vertical Bloch lines (VBLs) by lifting the four-fold degeneracy of the VBL. As a result, velocity reduction originating from the Walker breakdown is completely suppressed, leading to a soliton-like constant velocity of the DW. Furthermore, the strength of the DMI, which is the key factor for soliton-like DW motion, can be quantified without any side effects possibly arising from current-induced torques or extrinsic pinnings in magnetic films. Our results therefore shed light on the physics of dynamic topological defects, which paves the way for future work in topology-based memory applications.
We show a method to control magnetic interfacial effects in multilayers with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) using helium (He$^{+}$) ion irradiation. We compare results from SQUID magnetometry, ferromagnetic resonance as well as Brillouin light scattering results on multilayers with DMI as a function of irradiation fluence to study the effect of irradiation on the magnetic properties of the multilayers. Our results show clear evidence of the He$^{+}$ irradiation effects on the magnetic properties which is consistent with interface modification due to the effects of the He$^{+}$ irradiation. This external degree of freedom offers promising perspectives to further improve the control of magnetic skyrmions in multilayers, that could push them towards integration in future technologies, such as in low-power neuromorphic computing.
Chiral magnets are of fundamental interest and have important technological ramifications. The origin of chiral magnets lies in the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), an interaction whose experimental and theoretical determination is laborious. We derive an expression that identifies the electric dipole moment as descriptor for the systematic design of chiral magnetic multilayers. Using density functional theory calculations, we determine the DMI of (111)-oriented metallic ferromagnetic $Z$/Co/Pt multilayers of ultrathin films. The non-magnetic layer $Z$ determines the DMI at the Co-Pt interface. The results validate the electric and magnetic dipole moments as excellent descriptors. We found a linear relation between the electric dipole moment of Pt, the Allen electronegativity of $Z$, and the contribution of Pt to the total DMI.
Spin waves can probe the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) which gives rise to topological spin textures, such as skyrmions. However, the DMI has not yet been reported in yttrium iron garnet (YIG) with arguably the lowest damping for spin waves. In this work, we experimentally evidence the interfacial DMI in a 7~nm-thick YIG film by measuring the nonreciprocal spin wave propagation in terms of frequency, amplitude and most importantly group velocities using all electrical spin-wave spectroscopy. The velocities of propagating spin waves show chirality among three vectors, i.e. the film normal direction, applied field and spin-wave wavevector. By measuring the asymmetric group velocities, we extract a DMI constant of 16~$mu$J/m$^{2}$ which we independently confirm by Brillouin light scattering. Thickness-dependent measurements reveal that the DMI originates from the oxide interface between the YIG and garnet substrate. The interfacial DMI discovered in the ultrathin YIG films is of key importance for functional chiral magnonics as ultra-low spin-wave damping can be achieved.