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.
We report on the study of both perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) at an oxide/ferromagnetic metal (FM) interface, i.e. BaTiO3 (BTO)/CoFeB. Thanks to the functional properties of the BTO film and the capability to precisely control its growth, we are able to distinguish the dominant role of the oxide termination (TiO2 vs BaO), from the moderate effect of ferroelectric polarization in the BTO film, on the PMA and DMI at the oxide/FM interface. We find that the interfacial magnetic anisotropy energy of the BaO-BTO/CoFeB structure is two times larger than that of the TiO2-BTO/CoFeB, while the DMI of the TiO2-BTO/CoFeB interface is larger. We explain the observed phenomena by first-principles calculations, which ascribe them to the different electronic states around the Fermi level at the oxide/ferromagnetic metal interfaces and the different spin-flip processes. This study paves the way for further investigation of the PMA and DMI at various oxide/FM structures and thus their applications in the promising field of energy-efficient devices.
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.
Despite a decade of research, the precise mechanisms occurring at interfaces underlying the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), and thus the possibility of fine-tuning it, are not yet fully identified. In this study, we investigate the origin of the interfacial DMI, aiming at disentangling how independent are the interfaces around the ferromagnetic layer, and what are their relative contributions to the effective DMI amplitude. For this purpose, we have grown and investigated a large variety of systems with a common structure Pt$|$Co$|M$ with $M =$ Ni, Pd, Ru, Al, Al$|$Ta and MoSi. We explore the correlation between the effective interfacial DMI, and different intrinsic properties of metals, namely atomic number, electronegativity and work function difference at the Co$|M$ interfaces. We find a linear relationship between interfacial DMI and the work function difference between the two elements, hence relating the nature of this behavior to the interfacial potential gradient at the metallic interfaces. The understanding of the DMI mechanism is of utmost importance since it opens up the possibility of precisely engineering the magnetic and hence the spintronic properties for future devices.
Interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI) has been investigated in Co2FeAl (CFA) ultrathin films of various thicknesses (0.8 nm<tCFA<2 nm) grown on Si substrates, using Pt, W, Ir and MgO buffer or/and capping layers. Vibrating sample magnetometry revealed that magnetization at saturation (Ms) for the Pt and Ir buffered films is higher than the usual Ms of CFA due to the proximity induced magnetization (PIM) in Ir and Pt, estimated to be 19% and 27%, respectively. The presence of PIM in these materials is confirmed using x-ray resonant magnetic reflectivity. Moreover, while no PIM is induced in W, higher PIM is obtained with Pt when it is used as buffer layer rather than capping layer. Brillouin light scattering (BLS) in the Damon-Eshbach geometry has been used to investigate iDMI constants and the perpendicular anisotropy field versus the annealing temperature. The DMI sign has been found to be negative for Pt/CFA and Ir/CFA while it is positive for W/CFA. The thickness dependence of the effective iDMI constant for stacks involving Pt and W shows the existence of two regimes similarly to that of the perpendicular anisotropy constant due to the degradation of the interfaces as the CFA thickness approaches the nanometer. The surface iDMI and anisotropy constants of each stack have been determined for the thickest samples where a linear thickness dependence of the effective iDMI constant and the effective magnetization has been observed. The interface anisotropy and iDMI constants, investigated for Pt/CFA/MgO system, showed different trends with the annealing temperature. The decrease of iDMI constant with increasing annealing temperature is probably due to the electronic structure changes at the interfaces, while the increase of the interface anisotropy constant is coherent the interface quality and disorder enhancement.
Chiral magnets are an emerging class of topological matter harbouring localized and topologically protected vortex-like magnetic textures called skyrmions, which are currently under intense scrutiny as a new entity for information storage and processing. Here, on the level of micromagnetics we rigorously show that chiral magnets cannot only host skyrmions but also antiskyrmions as least-energy configurations over all non-trivial homotopy classes. We derive practical criteria for their occurrence and coexistence with skyrmions that can be fulfilled by (110)-oriented interfaces in dependence on the electronic structure. Relating the electronic structure to an atomistic spin-lattice model by means of density-functional calculations and minimizing the energy on a mesoscopic scale applying spin-relaxation methods, we propose a double layer of Fe grown on a W(110) substrate as a practical example. We conjecture that ultrathin magnetic films grown on semiconductor or heavy metal substrates with $C_{2v}$ symmetry are prototype classes of materials hosting magnetic antiskyrmions.