No Arabic abstract
This paper reports on magnetometry and magnetoresistance measurements of MnSi epilayers performed in out-of-plane magnetic fields. We present a theoretical analysis of the chiral modulations that arise in confined cubic helimagnets where the uniaxial anisotropy axis and magnetic field are both out-of-plane. In contrast to in-plane field measurements (Wilson et al., Phys. Rev. B 86, 144420 (2012)), the hard-axis uniaxial anisotropy in MnSi/Si(111) increases the energy of (111)-oriented skyrmions and in-plane helicoids relative to the cone phase, and makes the cone phase the only stable magnetic texture below the saturation field. While induced uniaxial anisotropy is important in stabilizing skyrmion lattices and helicoids in other confined cubic helimagnets, the particular anisotropy in MnSi/Si(111) entirely suppresses these states in an out-of-plane magnetic field. However, it is predicted that isolated skyrmions with enlarged sizes exist in MnSi/Si(111) epilayers in a broad range of out-of-plane magnetic fields.
The impact of magnetic anisotropy on the skyrmion lattice (SkL) state in cubic chiral magnets has been overlooked for long, partly because a semi-quantitative description of the thermodynamically stable SkL phase pocket forming near the Curie temperature could be achieved without invoking anisotropy effects. However, there has been a range of phenomena reported recently in these materials, such as the formation of low-temperature tilted conical and SkL states as well as temperature-induced transformations of lattice geometry in metastable SkL states, where anisotropy was suspected to play a key role. To settle this issue on experimental basis, we quantified the cubic anisotropy in a series of CoZnMn-type cubic chiral magnets. We found that the strength of anisotropy is highly enhanced towards low temperatures in all the compounds, moreover, not only the magnitude but also the character of cubic anisotropy drastically varies upon changing the Co/Mn ratio. We correlate these changes with temperature- and composition-induced variations of the helical modulation vectors, the anharmonicity and structural rearrangements of the metastable SkLs and the spin relaxation rates. Similar systematic studies on magnetic anisotropy may not only pave the way for a quantitative and unified description of the stable and metastable modulated spin textures in cubic chiral magnets but would also help exploring further topological spin textures in this large class of skyrmion hosts.
We have performed micromagnetic simulations to study the formation of skyrmions in ferromagnetic elements with different shapes having perpendicular anisotropy. The strength of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (D) and uniaxial anisotropy (K) are varied to elucidate the regime in which skyrmion formation can take place. It is found that for a certain combination of D and K skyrmion formation does not happen. Further we also observed that for large D and small K values, finite size effect dominates which in turn hinders formation of typical Neel (spherical) skyrmions. However the resulting magnetic phase is skyrmionic in nature and has different shape. We also have found that the shape of the magnetic nano element has a significant role in determining the final magnetic state in addition to the competing D and K values.
A strategy to drive skyrmion motion by a combination of an anisotropy gradient and spin Hall effect has recently been demonstrated. Here, we study the fundamental properties of this type of motion by combining micromagnetic simulations and a generalized Thiele equation. We find that the anisotropy gradient drives the skyrmion mainly along the direction perpendicular to the gradient, due to the conservative part of the torque. There is some slower motion along the direction parallel to the anisotropy gradient due to damping torque. When an appropriate spin Hall torque is added, the skyrmion velocity in the direction of the anisotropy gradient can be enhanced. This motion gives rise to acceleration of the skyrmion as this moves to regions of varying anisotropy. This phenomenon should be taken into account in experiments for the correct evaluation of the skyrmion velocity. We employ a Thiele like formalism and derive expressions for the velocity and the acceleration of the skyrmion that match very well with micromagnetic simulation results.
The influence of the crystal structure inhomogeneities on the magnetic properties of cobalt nanoparticles with different aspect ratio and spherical nanoparticles of chromium dioxide, cobalt ferrite and magnetite has been studied by means of numerical simulation. The polycrystalline nanoparticles are modeled by means of subdivision of the nanoparticle volume into tightly bound single-crystal granules with randomly distributed directions of the easy anisotropy axes. The probability of appearance of quasi uniform and vortex states in sufficiently large assemblies of polycrystalline nanoparticles of various types have been calculated depending on the nanoparticle diameter. It is shown that the subdivision of a nanoparticle into single-crystal granules with different orientations of the easy anisotropy axes substantially reduces the effective single-domain diameters for particles with uniaxial type of anisotropy of individual granules. However, for particles with cubic type of magnetic anisotropy the influence of the crystal structure inhomogeneities on the equilibrium properties of the particles is not so important even for magnetically hard cobalt ferrite nanoparticles. It is practically absent for magnetically soft magnetite nanoparticles.
We report the direct evidence of field-dependent character of the interaction between individual magnetic skyrmions as well as between skyrmions and edges in B20-type FeGe nanostripes observed by means of high resolution Lorentz transmission electron microscopy. It is shown that above certain critical values of external magnetic field the character of such long-range skyrmion interactions change from attraction to repulsion. Experimentally measured equilibrium inter-skyrmion and skrymion-edge distances as function of applied magnetic field shows quantitative agreement with the results of micromagnetic simulations. Important role of demagnetizing fields and internal symmetry of three-dimensional magnetic skyrmions are discussed in details.