No Arabic abstract
Isotropic Heisenberg exchange naturally appears as the main interaction in magnetism, usually favouring long-range spin-ordered phases. The anisotropic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction arises from relativistic corrections and is a priori much weaker, even though it may sufficiently compete with the isotropic one to yield new spin textures. Here, we challenge this well-established paradigm, and propose to explore a Heisenberg-exchange-free magnetic world. There, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction induces magnetic frustration in two dimensions, from which the competition with an external magnetic field results in a new mechanism producing skyrmions of nanoscale size. The isolated nanoskyrmion can already be stabilized in a few-atom cluster, and may then be used as LEGO block to build a large magnetic mosaic. The realization of such topological spin nanotextures in sp- and p-electron compounds or in ultracold atomic gases would open a new route toward robust and compact magnetic memories.
Quantum information science has the potential to revolutionize modern technology by providing resource-efficient approaches to computing, communication, and sensing. Although the physical qubits in a realistic quantum device will inevitably suffer errors, quantum error correction creates a path to fault-tolerant quantum information processing. Quantum error correction, however, requires that individual qubits can interact with many other qubits in the processor. Engineering this high connectivity can pose a challenge for platforms like electron spin qubits that naturally favor linear arrays. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of the transmission of electron spin states via Heisenberg exchange in an array of spin qubits. We transfer both single-spin and entangled states back and forth in a quadruple quantum-dot array without moving any electrons. Because it is scalable to large numbers of qubits, state transfer through Heisenberg exchange will be especially useful for multi-qubit gates and error-correction in spin-based quantum computers.
We consider Gaussian fluctuations about domain walls embedded in one- or two-dimensional spin lattices. Analytic expressions for the free energy of one domain wall are obtained. From these, the temperature dependence of experimentally relevant spatial scales -- i.e., the correlation length for spin chains and the size of magnetic domains for thin films magnetized out of plane -- are deduced. Stability of chiral order inside domain walls against thermal fluctuations is also discussed.
Rotating all islands in square artificial spin ice (ASI) uniformly about their centres gives rise to the recently reported pinwheel ASI. At angles around 45$^mathrm{o}$, the antiferromagnetic ordering changes to ferromagnetic and the magnetic configurations of the system exhibit near-degeneracy, making it particularly sensitive to small perturbations. We investigate through micromagnetic modelling the influence of dipolar fields produced by physically extended islands in field-driven magnetisation processes in pinwheel arrays, and compare the results to hysteresis experiments performed in-situ using Lorentz transmission electron microscopy. We find that magnetisation end-states induce a Heisenberg pseudo-exchange interaction that governs both the inter-island coupling and the resultant array reversal process. Symmetry reduction gives rise to anisotropies and array-corner mediated avalanche reversals through a cascade of nearest-neighbour (NN) islands. The symmetries of the anisotropy axes are related to those of the geometrical array but are misaligned to the array axes as a result of the correlated interactions between neighbouring islands. The NN dipolar coupling is reduced by decreasing the island size and, using this property, we track the transition from the strongly coupled regime towards the pure point dipole one and observe modification of the ferromagnetic array reversal process. Our results shed light on important aspects of the interactions in pinwheel ASI, and demonstrate a mechanism by which their properties may be tuned for use in a range of fundamental research and spintronic applications.
The superexchange intertacion in transition-metal oxides, proposed initially by Anderson in 1950, is treated using contemporary tight-binding theory and existing parameters. We find also a direct exchange for nearest-neighbor metal ions, larger by a factor of order five than the superexchange. This direct exchange arises from Vddm coupling, rather than overlap of atomic charge densities, a small overlap exchange contribution which we also estimate. For FeO and CoO there is also an important negative contribution, related to Stoner ferromagnetism, from the partially filled minority-spin band which broadens when ionic spins are aligned. The corresponding J1 and J2 parameters are calculated for MnO, FeO, CoO, and NiO. They give good accounts of the Neel and the Curie-Weiss temperatures, show appropriate trends, and give a reasonable account of their volume dependences. For MnO the predicted value for the magnetic susceptibility at the Neel temperature and the crystal distortion arising from the antiferromagnetic transition were reasonably well given. Application to CuO2 planes in the cuprates gives J=1220oK, compared to an experimental 1500oK, and for LiCrO2 gives J1=4 50oK compared to an experimental 230oK.
We report a simple route to generate magnetotransport data that results in fractional quantum Hall plateaus in the conductance. Ingredients to the generating model are conducting tiles with integer quantum Hall effect and metallic linkers, further Kirchhoff rules. When connecting few identical tiles in a mosaic, fractional steps occur in the conductance values. Richer spectra representing several fractions occur when the tiles are parametrically varied. Parts of the simulation data are supported with purposefully designed graphene mosaics in high magnetic fields. The findings emphasize that the occurrence of fractional conductance values, in particular in two-terminal measurements, does not necessarily indicate interaction-driven physics. We underscore the importance of an independent determination of charge densities and critically discuss similarities with and differences to the fractional quantum Hall effect.