Imprint from ferromagnetic skyrmions in an antiferromagnet via exchange bias

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are topological spin textures holding great potential as nanoscale information carriers. Recently, skyrmions have been predicted in antiferromagnets, with key advantages in terms of stability, size, and dynamical properties over their ferromagnetic analogs. However, their experimental demonstration is still lacking. Here, we show the imprint from ferromagnetic skyrmions into a thin film of an IrMn antiferromagnet, at room temperature and zero external magnetic field, using exchange-bias. Using high-spatial-resolution x-ray magnetic circular dichroism photoemission electron microscopy (XMCD-PEEM), we observed the imprinted spin textures within the IrMn from the XMCD signal of the uncompensated Mn spins at the interface with the ferromagnet. This result opens up a path for logic and memory devices based on skyrmion manipulation in antiferromagnets.

11 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Advances in the Physics of Magnetic Skyrmions and Perspective for Technology
• Spontaneous Skyrmion Ground States in Magnetic Metals
• Real-space imaging of non-collinear antiferromagnetic order with a single spin magnetometer
• Purely Antiferromagnetic Magnetoelectric Random Access Memory
• Antiferromagnetic Half-skyrmions and Bimerons at room temperature
• Fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice induced by anisotropic couplings
• Lateral length scales in exchange bias
• Temperature and thickness dependence of tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance in exchange-biased Py/IrMn/MgO/Ta stacks

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Fast current-induced skyrmion motion in synthetic antiferromagnets
• Effects of interlayer exchange on collapse mechanisms and stability of magnetic skyrmions
• Zero Field Antiferromagnetically Coupled Skyrmions and their Field-Driven Uncoupling in Composite Chiral Multilayers
• Local setting of spin textures in a granular antiferromagnet
• Imprinting of skyrmions and bimerons in an antiferromagnet