Deterministic creation and deletion of a single magnetic skyrmion observed by direct time-resolved X-ray microscopy
By S. Woo, K. Song, Xichao Zhang, M. Ezawa, Yan Zhou, Xiaoxi Liu, M. Weigand, S. Finizio, J. Raabe, Min-Chul Park and 5 more. 2017
145 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Spintronic devices based on magnetic skyrmions are a promising candidate for next-generation memory applications due to their nanometre size, topologically protected stability and efficient current-driven dynamics. Since the recent discovery of room-temperature magnetic skyrmions, there have been reports of current-driven skyrmion displacement on magnetic tracks and demonstrations of current pulse-driven skyrmion generation. However, the controlled annihilation of a single skyrmion at room temperature has remained elusive. Here we demonstrate the deterministic writing and deleting of single isolated skyrmions at room temperature in ferrimagnetic GdFeCo films with a device-compatible stripline geometry. The process is driven by the application of current pulses, which induce spin–orbit torques, and is directly observed using a time-resolved nanoscale X-ray imaging technique. We provide a current pulse profile for the efficient and deterministic writing and deleting process. Using micromagnetic simulations, we also reveal the microscopic mechanism of the topological fluctuations that occur during this process.Single isolated magnetic skyrmions can be electrically written and deleted at room temperature in a magnetic device with a technologically relevant stripline geometry, a process that can be directly observed using time-resolved X-ray pump–probe measurements.
Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/75022bea7f19196e36761f0ce854740750609a24
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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
In Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
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Citations in the corpus
- Skyrmion-electronics: writing, deleting, reading and processing magnetic skyrmions toward spintronic applications (2019, methodology): “In the same year, Woo et al reported the observation of stable room-temperature skyrmions and their currentinduced motion in [Pt (3 nm)/Co (0.9 nm)/Ta (4 nm)]15 and [Pt (4.5 nm)/CoFeB (0.7 nm)/MgO (1.4 nm)]15 multilayer stacks by using both the full-field magnetic transmission soft x-ray microscopy”
- Skyrmion-based artificial synapses for neuromorphic computing (2019, methodology): “…were designed and optimized to generate/delete the controlled number of skyrmions using current-induced spin–orbit torques (SOTs), as investigated in our previous study 12 , assisted by current-induced joule heating, which contributes to the reduction of skyrmion switching thresholds 31 .”