Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 23: Magnetic Domain Walls
MA 23.3: Talk
Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 10:00–10:15, H48
Direct observation of bulk-DMI-stabilized Néel-type domain walls in ferrimagnetic rare-earth transition-metal alloys — •Daniel Metternich1, Riccardo Battistelli1, Chen Luo1, Florin Radu1, Sebastian Wintz1, Kai Litzius2, Marcel Möller3, John Gaida3, Claus Ropers3, Manuel Valvidares4, Pierluigi Gargiani4, Andrada-Oana Mandru5, Yaoxuan Feng5, Hans Josef Hug5, and Felix Büttner1 — 1Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Berlin, Germany — 2Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany — 3Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany — 4ALBA Synchrotron, Barcelona, Spain — 5Empa, Dübendorf, Switzerland
Since the discovery of bulk DMI within rare-earth transition-metal alloys, the possibility of bulk-DMI-stabilized skyrmions within these materials is an enticing prospect for potential spintronics applications. However, so far, no direct observation of any bulk-DMI-induced chiral spin textures has been reported in this material class.
We present our study on 50-nm-thick DyCo films, which we imaged with transmission X-ray microscopy. We found domain walls and skyrmions, both of which exhibit strong local variations of the chirality up to pure Néel-type. Due to the large film thickness, we attribute the formation of such Néel walls to the presence of significant bulk DMI in our sample. Moreover, we attribute the strong variations of the chirality to lateral changes of the material composition. Lorentz transmission electron microscopy and magnetic force microscopy measurements support our observations.