Coexistence of distinct skyrmion phases observed in hybrid ferromagnetic/ferrimagnetic multilayers

Author(s)
Andrada-Oana Mandru, Oguz Yildirim, Riccardo Tomasello, Paul Heistracher, Marcos Penedo, Anna Giodano, Dieter Suess, Giovanni Finocchio, Hans Josef Hug
Abstract

Materials hosting magnetic skyrmions at room temperature could enable compact and energetically-efficient storage such as racetrack memories, where information is coded by the presence/absence of skyrmions forming a moving chain through the device. The skyrmion Hall effect leading to their annihilation at the racetrack edges can be suppressed, for example, by antiferromagnetically-coupled skyrmions. However, avoiding modifications of the inter-skyrmion distances remains challenging. As a solution, a chain of bits could also be encoded by two different solitons, such as a skyrmion and a chiral bobber, with the limitation that it has solely been realized in B20-type materials at low temperatures. Here, we demonstrate that a hybrid ferro/ferri/ferromagnetic multilayer system can host two distinct skyrmion phases at room temperature, namely tubular and partial skyrmions. Furthermore, the tubular skyrmion can be converted into a partial skyrmion. Such systems may serve as a platform for designing memory applications using distinct skyrmion types.

Organisation(s)
Physics of Functional Materials
External organisation(s)
Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt, Foundation for Research and Technology—Hellas (FORTH), Università degli Studi di Messina, Universität Basel, Christian Doppler Research Association
Journal
Nature Communications
Volume
11
No. of pages
7
ISSN
2041-1723
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20025-2
Publication date
12-2020
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103017 Magnetism
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Physics and Astronomy(all), Chemistry(all), Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/coexistence-of-distinct-skyrmion-phases-observed-in-hybrid-ferromagneticferrimagnetic-multilayers(cfe72f11-fe1c-48d2-9ac0-dcb17b156cea).html