Creation of a chiral bobber lattice in helimagnet-multilayer heterostructures

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.017204

Authors: Kejing Ran (ShanghaiTech University) , Yizhou Liu (RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)) , Yao Guang (Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) , David M. Burn (Diamond Light Source) , Gerrit Van Der Laan (Diamond Light Source) , Thorsten Hesjedal (University of Oxford) , Haifeng Du (High Magnetic Field Laboratory and University of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences) , Guoqiang Yu (Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) , Shilei Zhang (University of Oxford; ShanghaiTech University)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Physical Review Letters , VOL 126

State: Published (Approved)
Published: January 2021
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 20182

Abstract: A chiral bobber is a localized three-dimensional magnetization configuration, terminated by a singularity. Chiral bobbers coexist with magnetic skyrmions in chiral magnets, lending themselves to new types of skyrmion-complementary bits of information. However, the on-demand creation of bobbers, as well as their direct observation remained elusive. Here, we introduce a new mechanism for creating a stable chiral bobber lattice state via the proximity of two skyrmion species with comparable size. This effect is experimentally demonstrated in a Cu 2 OSeO 3 / [ Ta / CoFeB / MgO ] 4 heterostructure in which an exotic bobber lattice state emerges in the phase diagram of Cu 2 OSeO 3 . To unambiguously reveal the existence of the chiral bobber lattice state, we have developed a novel characterization technique, magnetic truncation rod analysis, which is based on resonant elastic x-ray scattering.

Journal Keywords: Magnetic coupling; Magnetic texture; Skyrmions; Micromagnetic modeling; Resonant elastic x-ray scattering

Diamond Keywords: Skyrmions

Subject Areas: Materials, Physics


Instruments: I10-Beamline for Advanced Dichroism

Added On: 14/01/2021 09:34

Documents:
PhysRevLett.126.017204.pdf

Discipline Tags:

Hard condensed matter - electronic properties Physics Magnetism

Technical Tags:

Scattering Resonant Elastic X-ray Scattering (REXS)