The effect of boundary-induced chirality on magnetic textures in thin films

Abstract

In the quest for miniaturizing magnetic devices, the effects of boundaries and surfaces become increasingly important. Here we show how the recently predicted boundary-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) affects the magnetization of ferromagnetic films with a $C_{\infty v}$ symmetry and a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. For an otherwise uniformly magnetized film, we find a surface twist when the magnetization in the bulk is canted by an in-plane external field. This twist at the surfaces caused by the boundary-induced DMI differs from the common canting caused by internal DMI observed at the edges of a chiral magnet. Further, we find that the surface twist due to the boundary-induced DMI strongly affects the width of the domain wall at the surfaces. We also find that the skyrmion radius increases in the depth of the film, with the average size of the skyrmion increasing with boundary-induced DMI. This increase suggests that the boundary-induced DMI contributes to the stability of the skyrmion.

arXiv comment9 pages, 7 figures

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Skyrmion ratchet effect driven by a biharmonic force
• Chiral ferromagnetism beyond Lifshitz invariants
• Twists in Ferromagnetic Monolayers With Trigonal Prismatic Symmetry
• Evidence of a first-order smectic -- hexatic transition and its proximity to tricritical point in smectic films
• Dynamics of asymmetrically deformed skyrmion driven by internal forces and strain force in a flower-shaped magnetic nanostructure
• Emergent Self-propulsion of Skyrmionic Matter in Synthetic Antiferromagnets
• Large Surface Magnetization in Noncentrosymmetric Antiferromagnets
• Releasing latent chirality in magnetic two-dimensional materials