No Arabic abstract
Electric control of magnetism is a prerequisite for efficient and low power spintronic devices. More specifically, in heavy metal/ ferromagnet/ insulator heterostructures, voltage gating has been shown to locally and dynamically tune magnetic properties like interface anisotropy and saturation magnetization. However, its effect on interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction (DMI), which is crucial for the stability of magnetic skyrmions, has been challenging to achieve and has not been reported yet for ultrathin films. Here, we demonstrate 130% variation of DMI with electric field in Ta/FeCoB/TaOx trilayers through Brillouin Light Spectroscopy (BLS). Using polar- Magneto-Optical-Kerr-Effect microscopy, we further show a monotonic variation of DMI and skyrmionic bubble size with electric field, with an unprecedented efficiency. We anticipate through our observations that a sign reversal of DMI with electric field is possible, leading to a chirality switch. This dynamic manipulation of DMI establishes an additional degree of control to engineer programmable skyrmion based memory or logic devices.
We have studied a series of Pt/Co/M epitaxial trilayers, in which Co is sandwiched between Pt and a non magnetic layer M (Pt, Ir, Cu, Al). Using polar magneto-optical Kerr microscopy, we show that the field- induced domain wall speeds are strongly dependent on the nature of the top layer, they increase going from M=Pt to lighter top metallic overlayers, and can reach several 100 m/s for Pt/Co/Al. The DW dynamics is consistent with the presence of chiral Neel walls stabilized by interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) whose strength increases going from Pt to Al top layers. This is explained by the presence of DMI with opposite sign at the Pt/Co and Co/M interfaces, the latter increasing in strength going towards heavier atoms, possibly due to the increasing spin-orbit interaction. This work shows that in non-centrosymmetric trilayers the domain wall dynamics can be finely tuned by engineering the DMI strength, in view of efficient devices for logic and spitronics applications.
The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) has drawn great attention as it stabilizes magnetic chirality, with important implications in fundamental and applied research. This antisymmetric exchange interaction is induced by the broken inversion symmetry at interfaces or in non-centrosymmetric lattices. Significant interfacial DMI was found often at magnetic / heavy-metal interfaces with large spin-orbit coupling. Recent studies have shown promise of induced DMI at interfaces involving light elements such as carbon (graphene) or oxygen. Here we report direct observation of induced DMI by chemisorption of the lightest element, hydrogen, on a ferromagnetic layer at room temperature, which is supported by density functional theory calculations. We further demonstrate a reversible chirality transition of the magnetic domain walls due to the induced DMI via hydrogen chemisorption/desorption. These results shed new light on the understanding of DMI in low atomic number materials and design of novel chiral spintronics and magneto-ionic devices.
We present a systematic analysis of our ability to tune chiral Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions (DMI) in compensated ferrimagnetic Pt/GdCo/Pt1-xWx trilayers by cap layer composition. Using first principles calculations, we show that the DMI increases rapidly for only ~ 10% W and saturates thereafter, in agreement with experiments. The calculated DMI shows a spread in values around the experimental mean, depending on the atomic configuration of the cap layer interface. The saturation is attributed to the vanishing of spin orbit coupling energy at the cap layer and the simultaneous constancy at the bottom interface. Additionally, we predict the DMI in Pt/GdCo/X (X=Ta, W, Ir) and find that W in the cap layer favors a higher DMI than Ta and Ir that can be attributed to the difference in d-band alignment around the Fermi level. Our results open up exciting combinatorial possibilities for controlling the DMI in ferrimagnets towards nucleating and manipulating ultrasmall high-speed skyrmions.
We carry out density functional theory calculations which demonstrate that the electron dynamics in the skyrmion phase of Fe-rich Mn$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$Ge alloys is governed by Berry phase physics. We observe that the magnitude of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, directly related to the mixed space-momentum Berry phases, changes sign and magnitude with concentration $x$ in direct correlation with the data of Shibata {it et al.}, Nature Nanotech. {bf 8}, 723 (2013). The computed anomalous and topological Hall effects in FeGe are also in good agreement with available experiments. We further develop a simple tight-binding model able to explain these findings. Finally, we show that the adiabatic Berry phase picture is violated in the Mn-rich limit of the alloys.
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.