Skyrmions in magnetic multilayers

By Wanjun Jiang, Gong Chen, Kai Liu, J. Zang, S. Velthuis, Axel Hoffmann. 2017

540 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Symmetry breaking together with strong spin–orbit interaction gives rise to many exciting phenomena within condensed matter physics. A recent example is the existence of chiral spin textures, which are observed in magnetic systems lacking inversion symmetry. These chiral spin textures, including domain walls and magnetic skyrmions, are both fundamentally interesting and technologically promising. For example, they can be driven very efficiently by electrical currents, and exhibit many new physical properties determined by their real-space topological characteristics. Depending on the details of the competing interactions, these spin textures exist in different parameter spaces. However, the governing mechanism underlying their physical behaviors remains essentially the same. In this review article, the fundamental topological physics underlying these chiral spin textures, the key factors for materials optimization, and current developments and future challenges will be discussed. In the end, a few promising directions that will advance the development of skyrmion based spintronics will be highlighted.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1868d06420f4171f36e15ee2a8a706b884879a69

How researchers see this paper

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Pietro Gambardella
2. J. Sinova
3. T. Jungwirth
4. A. Manchon
5. I. Miron
6. Kevin Garello
7. A. Thiaville
8. J. Železný

In Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

1. Pietro Gambardella
2. Y. Tokura
3. O. Tretiakov
4. I. Mertig
5. B. Göbel
6. J. Sinova
7. A. Thiaville
8. T. Arima

Citations in the corpus

• Current-induced spin-orbit torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems (2018, background): “Many experiments have revealed skyrmions motion under current, either along or against the direction of the electron flow, in most cases in agreement with the DMI and DL SOT sign (Hrabec et al., 2017; Jiang et al., 2015, 2017b; Litzius et al., 2017; Woo et al., 2016; Yu et al., 2016a).”
• Beyond skyrmions: Review and perspectives of alternative magnetic quasiparticles (2020, methodology): “Conventional skyrmions have for example been generated by directed, deterministic approaches such as spin torques or magnetic fields (see reviews [49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56]).”
• Skyrmion lattice with a giant topological Hall effect in a frustrated triangular-lattice magnet (2018, background): “ skyrmions as potential information carries (15). Extensive studies have successfully identified skyrmion-hosting materials in the form of both bulk compounds (16) and multilayer thin-film structures (17). From those, one can establish an empirical design principle for skyrmions (18,19); that is to ”