The possibility of utilizing the rich spin-dependent properties of graphene has attracted great attention in pursuit of spintronics advances. The promise of high-speed and low-energy consumption devices motivates a search for layered structures that stabilize chiral spin textures such as topologically protected skyrmions. Here we demonstrate that chiral spin textures are induced at graphene/ferromagnetic metal interfaces. This is unexpected because graphene is a weak spin-orbit coupling material and is generally not expected to induce sufficient Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction to affect magnetic chirality. We demonstrate that graphene induces a new type of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction due to a Rashba effect. First-principles calculations and experiments using spin-polarized electron microscopy show that this graphene-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction can have similar magnitude as at interfaces with heavy metals. This work paves a new path towards two-dimensional material based spin orbitronics.
We report a significant Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) at interfaces comprising hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and Co. By comparing the behavior of these phenomena at graphene/Co and h-BN/Co interfaces, it is found that the DMI in latter increases as a function of Co thickness and beyond three monolayers stabilizes with one order of magnitude larger values compared to those at graphene/Co, where the DMI shows opposite decreasing behavior. At the same time, the PMA for both systems shows similar trends with larger values for graphene/Co and no significant variations for all thickness ranges of Co. Furthermore, using micromagnetic simulations we demonstrate that such significant DMI and PMA values remaining stable over large range of Co thickness give rise to formation of skyrmions with small applied external fields in the range of 200-250 mT up to 100 K temperatures. These findings open up further possibilities towards integrating two-dimensional (2D) materials in spin-orbitronics devices.
A major challenge for future spintronics is to develop suitable spin transport channels with long spin lifetime and propagation length. Graphene can meet these requirements, even at room temperature. On the other side, taking advantage of the fast motion of chiral textures, i.e., Neel-type domain walls and magnetic skyrmions, can satisfy the demands for high-density data storage, low power consumption and high processing speed. We have engineered epitaxial structures where an epitaxial ferromagnetic Co layer is sandwiched between an epitaxial Pt(111) buffer grown in turn onto MgO(111) substrates and a graphene layer. We provide evidence of a graphene-induced enhancement of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy up to 4 nm thick Co films, and of the existence of chiral left-handed Neel-type domain walls stabilized by the effective Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) in the stack. The experiments show evidence of a sizeable DMI at the gr/Co interface, which is described in terms of a conduction electron mediated Rashba-DMI mechanism and points opposite to the Spin Orbit Coupling-induced DMI at the Co/Pt interface. In addition, the presence of graphene results in: i) a surfactant action for the Co growth, producing an intercalated, flat, highly perfect fcc film, pseudomorphic with Pt and ii) an efficient protection from oxidation. The magnetic chiral texture is stable at room temperature and grown on insulating substrate. Our findings open new routes to control chiral spin structures using interfacial engineering in graphene-based systems for future spin-orbitronics devices fully integrated on oxide substrates.
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.
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.
The Dzyaloshinskii Moriya Interaction (DMI) at the heavy metal (HM) and ferromagnetic metal (FM) interface has been recognized as a key ingredient in spintronic applications. Here we investigate the chemical trend of DMI on the 5d band filling (5d^3~5d^10) of the HM element in HM/CoFeB/MgO multilayer thin films. DMI is quantitatively evaluated by measuring asymmetric spin wave dispersion using Brillouin light scattering. Sign reversal and 20 times modification of the DMI coefficient D have been measured as the 5d HM element is varied. The chemical trend can be qualitatively understood by considering the 5d and 3d bands alignment at the HM/FM interface and the subsequent orbital hybridization around the Fermi level. Furthermore, a positive correlation is observed between DMI and spin mixing conductance at the HM/FM interfaces. Our results provide new insights into the interfacial DMI for designing future spintronic devices.
Hongxin Yang
,Gong Chen
,Alexandre A.C. Cotta
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(2017)
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"Significant Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction at Graphene-Ferromagnet Interfaces due to Rashba-effect"
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Mairbek Chshiev
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