Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 15: Focus Session: Skyrmionics: Future of Spintronics? (jointly with MA)

TT 15.4: Topical Talk

Monday, March 16, 2015, 16:45–17:15, H 0104

Magnetic Skyrmions and Chiral Spin Structures in Ultra-Thin Films — •Stefan Blügel — Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA, D-52425 Jülich, Germany

Ultrathin magnetic films and heterostructures provide a fantastic playground for the stabilization, manipulation and usage of magnetic skyrmions – topological magnetization solitons – magnetic entities with particle like properties that may open a new vista for spintronics. A crucial quantity for the skyrmion formation is the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), whose presence in thin films could be established in a concerted effort of first-principles theory and spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy [1]. It could be shown that the spin-orbit interaction and the structure inversion-asymmetry in these systems result in a DMI that is strong enough to give rise to one-dimensional and two-dimensional lattices [2] of chiral spin-textures as well as chiral domain walls. Even single skyrmions [3] could be induced. In retrospect, it is surprising how little is known about the DMI in these metallic systems. In this talk I give some insight into the DMI, the relation to the transport properties of electrons such as the THE and AHE in connection to the spin texture of a skyrmion, and discuss possibilities to manipulate the magnetic interaction to enlarge the materials base to stabilize single skyrmions.

[1] M. Bode et al., Nature 447, 190 (2007)

[2] S. Heinze et al., Nature Phys. 7, 713 (2011)

[3] N. Romming et al., Science 341, 636 (2013)