Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 52: Magnetic Thin Films II

MA 52.2: Talk

Friday, March 20, 2015, 09:45–10:00, H 1012

Spin spirals and skyrmions in ultrathin films and in-plane magnetic fields investigated by SP-STM — •Lorenz Schmidt, Pin-Jui Hsu, Christian Hanneken, Andre Kubetzka, Kirsten von Bergmann, and Roland Wiesendanger — Department of Physics, Universität Hamburg

Ultrathin magnetic films can exhibit topologically non-trivial spin textures as a result of competing magnetic interactions. Former spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy experiments (SP-STM) showed that a bilayer of palladium and iron on Ir(111) shows spin spirals in zero field and the application of a perpendicular magnetic field leads to the formation of skyrmions. It was also demonstrated that individual skyrmions can be written and deleted by local injection of electrons [1].

Here we investigate the changes inflicted by in-plane magnetic fields on the propagation direction of spin spirals and the switching behavior of skyrmions with SP-STM in a vectorial magnetic field. The propagation direction of the spin spiral is determined by the shape of the island and not changed by in-plane magnetic fields up to 1 T. Furthermore we examine if the switching rate and asymmetry between the ferromagnetic and skyrmionic states depend on in-plane magnetic fields.

[1] N. Romming et al, Science 341, 636 (2013)