| AVS 63rd International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures | Monday Sessions |
| Session MI+2D+AC-MoM |
| Session: | Chiral Magnetism (8:20-10:20 am)/Magnetism and Spin Orbit Effects at Interfaces and Surfaces: Recent Experimental and Theoretical Advances (10:40 am - 12:00 pm) |
| Presenter: | Kirsten von Bergmann, University of Hamburg, Germany |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Magnetic skyrmions are topologically distinct from their ferromagnetic environment. They may form in an inversion asymmetric environment and are induced by a competition between magnetic exchange, Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction, and typically the Zeeman energy. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is a valuable tool to study the properties of nanometer-scale skyrmions [1]. In addition to measurements with spin-polarized STM tips skyrmions can also be detected with unpolarized electrodes due to spin-mixing effects in the non-collinear spin texture. We employ spatially resolved magnetic field dependent tunneling spectroscopy to identify this effect of non-collinear magnetoresistance and find that it scales with the angle between nearest neighbors [2]. With a non-magnetic STM tip it is also possible to locally switch the topology of a thin magnetic layer via the sign of the electric field between tip and sample [3]. The combination of these two phenomena –electrical detection and electric field switching of topologically distinct states– could lead to a robust non-magnetic read- and write-head for future skyrmion racetracktype devices.
[1] K. von Bergmann et al., J. Phys.: Cond. Mat. 26, 394002 (2014).
[2] C. Hanneken et al., Nature Nanotechn. 10, 1039 (2015).
[3] P.-J. Hsu et al., arXiv:1601.02935.