No Arabic abstract
Electrical detection of topological magnetic textures such as skyrmions is currently limited to conducting materials. While magnetic insulators offer key advantages for skyrmion technologies with high speed and low loss, they have not yet been explored electrically. Here, we report a prominent topological Hall effect in Pt/Tm$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ bilayers, where the pristine Tm$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ epitaxial films down to 1.25 unit cell thickness allow for tuning of topological Hall stability over a broad range from 200 to 465 K through atomic-scale thickness control. Although Tm$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ is insulating, we demonstrate the detection of topological magnetic textures through a novel phenomenon: spin-Hall topological Hall effect (SH-THE), where the interfacial spin-orbit torques allow spin-Hall-effect generated spins in Pt to experience the unique topology of the underlying skyrmions in Tm$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$. This novel electrical detection phenomenon paves a new path for utilizing a large family of magnetic insulators in future skyrmion technologies.
We measure the ordinary and the anomalous Hall effect in a set of yttrium iron garnet$|$platinum (YIG$|$Pt) bilayers via magnetization orientation dependent magnetoresistance experiments. Our data show that the presence of the ferrimagnetic insulator YIG leads to an anomalous Hall like signature in Pt, sensitive to both Pt thickness and temperature. Interpretation of the experimental findings in terms of the spin Hall anomalous Hall effect indicates that the imaginary part of the spin mixing interface conductance $G_{mathrm{i}}$ plays a crucial role in YIG$|$Pt bilayers. In particular, our data suggest a sign change in $G_{mathrm{i}}$ between $10,mathrm{K}$ and $300,mathrm{K}$. Additionally, we report a higher order Hall effect, which appears in thin Pt films on YIG at low temperatures.
The polarity-tunable anomalous Hall effect (AHE) is useful for electronic device applications. Here in a magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 grown by molecular beam epitaxy, we report the polarity change of the AHE by increasing the temperature or tuning the gate bias. This is possible because the anomalous Hall response is composed of two competing contributions with opposite polarities. The negative contribution is intrinsic to MnBi2Te4, follows an ambipolar gate response and has a larger coercivity with increasing thickness. Meanwhile, the positive one has a coercivity that is about one order of magnitude greater than the negative one, dominates the Hall response at higher temperatures, is more tunable by a gate bias and vanishes by increasing the thickness of the thin film. One possible explanation for the additional positive AHE is an extra surface ferromagnetism caused by the surface-state-mediated RKKY interaction among magnetic impurities on the surface. Our work provides the understanding of the AHE of MnBi2Te4, and paves the way for many device applications, e.g. energy-efficient voltage-controlled memory.
We present the Co-Gd composition dependence of the spin-Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) and anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) for ferrimagnetic Co100-xGdx / Pt bilayers. With Gd concentration x, its magnetic moment increasingly competes with the Co moment in the net magnetization. We find a nearly compensated ferrimagnetic state at x = 24. The AMR changes sign from positive to negative with increasing x, vanishing near the magnetization compensation. On the other hand, the SMR does not vary significantly even where the AMR vanishes. These experimental results indicate that very different scattering mechanisms are responsible for AMR and SMR. We discuss a possible origin for the alloy composition dependence.
Spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) and magnon excitation magnetoresistance (MMR) that all generate via the spin Hall effect and inverse spin Hall effect in a nonmagnetic material are always related to each other. However, the influence of magnon excitation for SMR is often overlooked due to the negligible MMR. Here, we investigate the SMR in Pt/Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) bilayers from 5 to 300K, in which the YIG are treated after Ar+-ion milling. The SMR in the treated device is smaller than in the non-treated. According to theoretical simulation, we attribute this phenomenon to the reduction of the interfacial spin-mixing conductance at the treated Pt/YIG interface induced by the magnon suppression. Our experimental results point out that the SMR and the MMR are inter-connected, and the former could be modulated via magnon excitation. Our findings provide a new approach for separating and clarifying the underlying mechanisms.
A topological insulator (TI) interfaced with a magnetic insulator (MI) may host an anomalous Hall effect (AHE), a quantum AHE, and a topological Hall effect (THE). Recent studies, however, suggest that coexisting magnetic phases in TI/MI heterostructures may result in an AHE-associated response that resembles a THE but in fact is not. This article reports a genuine THE in a TI/MI structure that has only one magnetic phase. The structure shows a THE in the temperature range of T=2-3 K and an AHE at T=80-300 K. Over T=3-80 K, the two effects coexist but show opposite temperature dependencies. Control measurements, calculations, and simulations together suggest that the observed THE originates from skyrmions, rather than the coexistence of two AHE responses. The skyrmions are formed due to an interfacial DMI interaction. The DMI strength estimated is substantially higher than that in heavy metal-based systems.