Unveiling the emergent traits of chiral spin textures in magnetic multilayers

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically wound nanoscale textures of spins whose ambient stability and electrical manipulation in multilayer films have led to an explosion of research activities. While past efforts focused predominantly on isolated skyrmions, recently ensembles of chiral spin textures, consisting of skyrmions and magnetic stripes, were shown to possess rich interactions with potential for device applications. However, several fundamental aspects of chiral spin texture phenomenology remain to be elucidated, including their domain wall structure, thermodynamic stability, and morphological transitions. Here we unveil the evolution of these textural characteristics on a tunable multilayer platform - wherein chiral interactions governing spin texture energetics can be widely varied - using a combination of full-field electron and soft X-ray microscopies with numerical simulations. With increasing chiral interactions, we demonstrate the emergence of Néel helicity, followed by a marked reduction in domain compressibility, and finally a transformation in the skyrmion formation mechanism. Together with an analytical model, these experiments establish a comprehensive microscopic framework for investigating and tailoring chiral spin texture character in multilayer films.

References in corpus (6)

• scikit-image: Image processing in Python
• Additive interfacial chiral interaction in multilayers for stabilization of small individual skyrmion at room temperature
• Tailoring magnetic energies to form dipole skyrmions and skyrmion lattices
• Targeted Writing and Deleting of Magnetic Skyrmions in Two-Terminal Nanowire Devices
• Unveiling the emergent traits of chiral spin textures in magnetic multilayers
• Skyrmion generation from irreversible fission of stripes in chiral multilayer films

Cited by in corpus (7)

• All-Electrical Skyrmionic Bits in a Chiral Magnetic Tunnel Junction
• Unveiling the emergent traits of chiral spin textures in magnetic multilayers
• Thermal evolution of skyrmion formation mechanism in chiral multilayer films
• Quantifying symmetric exchange in ultrathin ferromagnetic films with chirality
• Tailoring Zero-Field Magnetic Skyrmions in Chiral Multilayers by a Duet of Interlayer Exchange Couplings
• Quantifying the magnetic interactions governing chiral spin textures using deep neural networks
• Zero Field Antiferromagnetically Coupled Skyrmions and their Field-Driven Uncoupling in Composite Chiral Multilayers