Imaging the ultrafast coherent control of a skyrmion crystal

Abstract

Exotic magnetic textures emerging from the subtle interplay between thermodynamic and topological fluctuation have attracted intense interest due to their potential applications in spintronic devices. Recent advances in electron microscopy have enabled the imaging of random photo-generated individual skyrmions. However, their deterministic and dynamical manipulation is hampered by the chaotic nature of such fluctuations and the intrinsically irreversible switching between different minima in the magnetic energy landscape. Here, we demonstrate a method to coherently control the rotation of a skyrmion crystal by discrete amounts at speeds which are much faster than previously observed. By employing circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses with an energy below the bandgap of the Mott insulator Cu2OSeO3, we excite a collective magnon mode via the inverse Faraday effect. This triggers coherent magnetic oscillations that directly control the rotation of a skyrmion crystal imaged by cryo-Lorentz Transmission Electron Microscopy. The manipulation of topological order via ultrafast laser pulses shown here can be used to engineer fast spin-based logical devices.

References in corpus (19)

• Spin Transfer Torques in MnSi at Ultra-low Current Densities
• Direct Observation of the Skyrmion Hall Effect
• Efficient metallic spintronic emitters of ultrabroadband terahertz radiation
• Skyrmion Hall Effect Revealed by Direct Time-Resolved X-Ray Microscopy
• Engineering ultrafast spin currents and terahertz transients by magnetic heterostructures
• Switching a spin-valve back and forth by current-induced domain wall motion
• Thermally Driven Ratchet Motion of Skyrmion Microcrystal and Topological Magnon Hall Effect
• Magnon-skyrmion scattering in chiral magnets
• Electric field-induced Skyrmion distortion and giant lattice rotation in the magnetoelectric insulator Cu2OSeO3
• Laser-Induced Skyrmion Writing and Erasing in an Ultrafast Cryo-Lorentz Transmission Electron Microscopy
• Electric-field control of the skyrmion lattice in Cu2OSeO3
• Ultrafast generation of skyrmionic defects with vortex beams: printing laser profiles on magnets
• Femtosecond spin current pulses generated by the non-thermal spin-dependent Seebeck effect and interacting with ferromagnets in spin valves
• Picosecond spin Seebeck effect
• A light induced metastable magnetic texture uncovered by in-situ Lorentz microscopy
• Dynamical defects in rotating magnetic skyrmion lattices
• Photonic orbital angular momentum transfer and magnetic skyrmion rotation
• Low spin wave damping in the insulating chiral magnet Cu${}_2$OSeO${}_3$
• Ballistic magnon heat conduction and possible Poiseuille flow in the helimagnetic insulator Cu${}_2$OSeO${}_3$

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Optical skyrmions and other topological quasiparticles of light
• Universal phenomenology at critical exceptional points of nonequilibrium $O(N)$ models
• Spacetime magnetic hopfions: from internal excitations and braiding of skyrmions
• All optical control of bubble and skyrmion breathing
• Skyrmion Jellyfish in Driven Chiral Magnets
• Propelling Ferrimagnetic Domain Walls by Dynamical Frustration
• Skyrmion Lattice Manipulation with Electric Currents and Thermal Gradients in MnSi
• A set-up for Hard X-ray Time-resolved Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering at SwissFEL
• High-resolution MHz time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy based on a tunable vacuum ultraviolet source
• Shot-to-shot acquisition ultrafast electron diffraction