Chiral Spin Spirals at the Surface of the van der Waals Ferromagnet Fe${}_3$GeTe${}_2$

Abstract

Topologically protected magnetic structures provide a robust platform for low power consumption devices for computation and data storage. Examples of these structures are skyrmions, chiral domain walls, and spin spirals. Here we use scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis to unveil the presence of chiral counterclockwise Néel spin spirals at the surface of a bulk van der Waals ferromagnet Fe${}_3$GeTe${}_2$ (FGT), at zero magnetic field. These Néel spin spirals survive up to FGT's Curie temperature $T_{\mathrm{C}}=220\mathrm{K}$, with little change in the periodicity $p=300\mathrm{nm}$ of the spin spiral throughout the studied temperature range. The formation of a spin spiral showing counterclockwise rotation strongly suggests the presence of a positive Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in FGT, which provides the first steps towards the understanding of the magnetic structure of FGT. Our results additionally pave the way for chiral magnetism in van der Waals materials and their heterostructures.

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• Tuning magnetic chirality by dipolar interactions
• Magnetic chirality controlled by the interlayer exchange interaction
• Symmetry breaking in spin spirals and skyrmions by in-plane and canted magnetic fields
• Stabilizing chiral spin-structures via an alternating Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction
• Scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis for multilayered chiral spin textures
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Cited by in corpus (16)

• Van der Waals heterostructures for spintronics and opto-spintronics
• Tunable Néel-Bloch magnetic twists in Fe3GeTe2 with van der Waals structure
• Coexistence of Merons with Skyrmions in the Centrosymmetric van der Waals Ferromagnet Fe5GeTe2
• Josephson spin-valve realization in the magnetic nodal-line topological semimetal Fe${}_3$GeTe${}_2$
• Electron transport and scattering mechanisms in ferromagnetic monolayer Fe${}_3$GeTe${}_2$
• Topological superconductivity mediated by magnons of helical magnetic states
• Quartic asymmetric exchange for two-dimensional ferromagnets with trigonal prismatic symmetry
• An effective spin model on the honeycomb lattice for the description of magnetic properties in two-dimensional Fe${}_3$GeTe${}_2$
• Topological superconductivity in a magnetic-texture coupled Josephson junction
• Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in Fe5GeTe2 epitaxial thin films
• Factors affecting the topological Hall effect in strongly correlated layered magnets: spin of the magnetic atoms, polar and azimuthal angle subtended by the spin texture
• Signatures of quartic asymmetric exchange in a class of two dimensional magnets
• A proposal for realizing Majorana fermions without external magnetic field in strongly correlated nanowires
• Re-entrant topological order in strongly correlated nanowire due to Rashba spin-orbit coupling
• Unidirectional gliding of a cycloidal spin structure by an AC magnetic field
• Unconventional Hall effect and its variation with Co-doping in van der Waals Fe3GeTe2