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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 11: Non-Skyrmionic Magnetic Textures I
MA 11.6: Talk
Monday, March 27, 2023, 16:30–16:45, POT 6
X-ray holographic imaging of magnetic surface spirals in FeGe lamellae — •Luke A. Turnbull1, Matthew T. Littlehales1, Murray N. Wilson1, Max T. Birch2, Horia Popescu3, Nicolas Jaouen3, Joel Verezhak4, Geetha Balakrishnan4, and Peter D. Hatton1 — 1Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK — 2Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany — 3Synchrotron SOLEIL, Saint Aubin, BP 48 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette, France — 4Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
Isotropic helimagnets are known to host a diverse range of chiral magnetic states. In 2016, F.N. Rybakov et al. theorized the presence of a surface-pinned stacked spin spiral phase [F.N. Rybakov et al., 2016 New J. Phys. 18 045002], which had yet to be observed experimentally. The phase is characterized by surface spiral periods exceeding the host material's fundamental winding period, L. In this talk we present experimental evidence for the observation of this state in lamellae of FeGe using resonant x-ray holographic imaging data and micromagnetic simulations. We find images of FeGe lamellae, exceeding a critical thickness of 300 nm (4.3L), exhibit contrast modulations with a field-dependent periodicity of x<1.4L, consistent with theoretical predictions of the stacked spiral state. The identification of this spiral state carries significant implications for the stability of other coexisting spin textures in chiral helimagnets, and indicates the utility in considering magnetic systems in three-dimensions.