Current-driven dynamics and inhibition of the skyr
Post# of 22441
Seonghoon Woo, Kyung Mee Song, Xichao Zhang, Yan Zhou, Motohiko Ezawa, S. Finizio, J. Raabe, Jun Woo Choi, Byoung-Chul Min, Hyun Cheol Koo, Joonyeon Chang
(Submitted on 30 Mar 2017)
Magnetic skyrmions are swirling magnetic textures with novel characteristics suitable for future spintronic applications. Recent studies confirmed the room-temperature stabilization of skyrmions in ultrathin ferromagnets. However, such ferromagnetic skyrmions show undesirable topological effect, the skyrmion Hall effect, which leads to their current-driven motion towards device edges, where the skyrmions could easily be annihilated by topographic defects. Recent theoretical studies have predicted enhanced functionality and behaviour for antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled skyrmions. Here we present, for the first time, the stabilization of such skyrmions and their current-driven dynamics in ferrimagnetic GdFeCo films. By utilizing element-specific X-ray imaging, we find that the skyrmions in the Gd and FeCo sublattices are antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled. We further confirm that ferrimagnetic skyrmions can move at a velocity of ~60 m s-1 with significantly reduced skyrmion Hall angle, {\theta}SkHE < 10{\deg}. Our findings open the door to ferrimagnetic and antiferromagnetic skyrmionics while providing key experimental evidences of recent simulations.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.10310