No Arabic abstract
Frustrated topological spin textures have unique properties that may enable novel spintronic applications, such as the helicity-based information storage. Here we report the statics and current-induced dynamics of two-dimensional (2D) pancake skyrmions in a stack of weakly coupled frustrated magnetic monolayers, which form a three-dimensional (3D) skyrmion string. The Bloch-type skyrmion string is energetically more stable than its Neel-type counterpart. It can be driven into translational motion by the dampinglike spin-orbit torque and shows the damping-dependent skyrmion Hall effect. Most notably, the skyrmion string can be transformed to a dynamically stable bimeron string by the dampinglike spin-orbit torque. The current-induced bimeron string rotates stably with respect to its center, which can spontaneously transform back to a skyrmion string when the current is switched off. Our results reveal unusual physical properties of 3D frustrated spin textures, and may open up new possibilities for spintronic applications based on skyrmion and bimeron strings.
The magnetic skyrmion is a topological magnetic vortex, and its topological nature is characterized by an index called skyrmion number which is a mapping of the magnetic moments defined on a two-dimensional space to a unit sphere. In three-dimensions, a skyrmion, i.e., a vortex penetrating though the magnet naturally forms a string, which terminates at the surfaces of the magnet or in the bulk. For such a string, the topological indices, which control its topological stability are less trivial. Here, we show theoretically, in terms of numerical simulation for the current-driven motion of a skyrmion string in a film sample with the step edges on the surface, that the topological indices relevant to the stability are the followings; (i) skyrmion number along the developed surface, and (ii) the monopole charge in the bulk defined as the integral over the surface enclosing a singular magnetic configuration. As long as the magnetic configuration is slowly varying, the former is conserved while its changes is associated with nonzero monopole charge. The skyrmion number and the monoplole charge offer a coherent understanding of the stability of the topological magnetic texture and the nontrivial dynamics of skyrmion strings.
Magnetic bimeron is a topological counterpart of skyrmions in in-plane magnets, which can be used as a spintronic information carrier. We report the static properties of bimerons with different topological structures in a frustrated ferromagnetic monolayer, where the bimeron structure is characterized by the vorticity $Q_{text{v}}$ and helicity $eta$. It is found that the bimeron energy increases with $Q_{text{v}}$, and the energy of an isolated bimeron with $Q_{text{v}}=pm 1$ depends on $eta$. We also report the dynamics of frustrated bimerons driven by the spin-orbit torques, which depend on the strength of the dampinglike and fieldlike torques. We find that the isolated bimeron with $Q_{text{v}}=pm 1$ can be driven into linear or elliptical motion when the spin polarization is perpendicular to the easy axis. We numerically reveal the damping dependence of the bimeron Hall angle driven by the dampinglike torque. Besides, the isolated bimeron with $Q_{text{v}}=pm 1$ can be driven into rotation by the dampinglike torque when the spin polarization is parallel to the easy axis. The rotation frequency is proportional to the driving current density. In addition, we numerically demonstrate the possibility of creating a bimeron state with a higher or lower topological charge by the current-driven collision and merging of bimeron states with different $Q_{text{v}}$. Our results could be useful for understanding the bimeron physics in frustrated magnets.
A mgnetic bimeron is an in-plane topological counterpart of a magnetic skyrmion. Despite the topological equivalence, their statics and dynamics could be distinct, making them attractive from the perspectives of both physics and spintronic applications. In this work, we investigate an antiferromagnetic (AFM) thin film with interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), and introduce the AFM bimeron cluster as a new form of topological quasi-particle. Bimerons demonstrate high current-driven mobility as generic AFM solitons, while featuring anisotropic and relativistic dynamics excited by currents with in-plane and out-of-plane polarizations, respectively. Moreover, these spin textures can absorb other bimeron solitons or clusters along the translational direction to acquire a wide range of Neel topological numbers. The clustering involves the rearrangement of topological structures, and gives rise to remarkable changes in static and dynamical properties. The merits of AFM bimeron clusters reveal a potential path to unify multi-bit data creation, transmission, storage and even topology-based computation within the same material system, and may stimulate innovative spintronic devices enabling new paradigms of data manipulations.
Magnetic skyrmions are of considerable interest for low-power memory and logic devices because of high speed at low current and high stability due to topological protection. We propose a skyrmion field-effect transistor based on a gate-controlled Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. A key working principle of the proposed skyrmion field-effect transistor is a large transverse motion of skyrmion, caused by an effective equilibrium damping-like spin-orbit torque due to spatially inhomogeneous Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. This large transverse motion can be categorized as the skyrmion Hall effect, but has been unrecognized previously. The propose device is capable of multi-bit operation and Boolean functions, and thus is expected to serve as a low-power logic device based on the magnetic solitons.
Magnetic skyrmions are particle-like topological excitations that recently generated much interest as candidates for future spintronic devices based on skyrmion small size, enhanced topological stability, and/or mutual interaction. Here we examine the properties of isolated skyrmions in a frustrated chiral magnet with competing Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and frustrated exchange interactions. We show that the skyrmion size drastically decreases even for small values of competing stabilization mechanisms. Skyrmion mutual interaction remains attracting as is inherent for frustrated skyrmions, but the value of the Dzyaloshinskii constant regulates the number of minima in the interaction potentials. Moreover, the constructed phase diagrams for a chiral helimagnet contain a distorted spiral state that can be considered as a buffer between the helicoidal and conical one-dimensional modulations. The formulated concepts may further enhance the functionalities of spintronic devices. In particular, the controlled instability of skyrmions with respect to the conical state allows to obtain bimeron-like structures. Moreover, our results provide physical insight into the chiral states in the magnetic systems, e.g., in MnSi$_{1-x}$Ge$_x$.