Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 45: Focus Session: Magnon Transport in Metallic Spin Textures

MA 45.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 15:45–16:15, HSZ 04

Manipulating Room Temperature Magnetic Skyrmions — •Axel Hoffmann — Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, U.S.A.

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically distinct spin textures and can be stable with quasi-particle like behavior, where they can be manipulated with very low electric currents. Using magnetic multilayers we demonstrated that inhomogeneous charge currents allow the generation of skyrmions at room temperature in a process that is remarkably similar to the droplet formation in surface-tension driven fluid flows [1]. Micromagnetic simulations reproduce key aspects of this transformation process and suggest a possible second mechanism at higher currents that does not rely on preexisting magnetic domain structures [2]. Indeed, we demonstrated this second mechanism experimentally using non-magnetic point contacts. Using this approach, we demonstrated that the topological charge gives rise to a transverse motion on the skyrmions, i.e., the skyrmion Hall effect [3], which is in analogy to the ordinary Hall effect, which is due to the motion of electrically charged particles in the presence of a magnetic field.

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.

[1] W. Jiang, et al., Science 349, 283 (2015).

[2] O. Heinonen, et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 094407 (2016).

[3] W. Jiang, et al., Nature Phys., doi:10.1038/nphys3883 (2016).