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