Abstract
Magnetic skyrmions are promising potential information carriers for future spintronic devices owing to their nanoscale size, non-volatility and high mobility. In this work, we demonstrate the controlled manipulation of skyrmion motion and its implementation in a new concept of racetrack logical device by introducing an inhomogeneous perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) via micromagnetic simulation. Here, the inhomogeneous PMA can be introduced by a capping nano-island that serves as a tunable potential barriers/well which can effectively modulate the size and shape of isolated skyrmion. Using the inhomogeneous PMA in skyrmion-based racetrack enables the manipulation of skyrmion motion behaviors, for instance, blocking, trapping or allowing passing the injected skyrmion. In addition, the skyrmion trapping operation can be further exploited in developing special designed racetrack devices with logic AND and NOT, wherein a set of logic AND operations can be realized via skyrmion–skyrmion repulsion between two skyrmions. These results indicate an effective method for tailoring the skyrmion structures and motion behaviors by using inhomogeneous PMA, which further provide a new pathway to all-electric skyrmion-based memory and logic devices.
Highlights
A magnetic skyrmion is a topologically stable configuration often observed in chiral magnets with broken inversion symmetry
We studied the manipulation of skyrmion structure and dynamic behaviors mediated by local inhomogeneous perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) in heterostructures with center capping nano-island, by using micromagnetic simulation
We proposed the skyrmion-based logical devices with inhomogeneous PMA which can successfully achieve the logic AND and NOT operations by taking into account of the complicated dynamical behaviors of two interacting skyrmion movements in nanotracks
Summary
A magnetic skyrmion is a topologically stable configuration often observed in chiral magnets with broken inversion symmetry. The nanoscale skyrmion exhibits topologically stable particle-like behavior, and it can be efficiently created, annihilated and moved by ultra-low critical current densities These characters make it promising candidate as information carrier for next-generation of spintronic devices [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Inhomogeneous PMA introduced by using capping layer [28,29,30] or a voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) gate [31] has attracted more and more interests Such a nonuniform PMA can serve as potential well or barriers to control the local dynamic behavior of skyrmion, e.g., pinning or depinning of skyrmion, which shows promising features for applications in skyrmion transistors, memories, logic gates, etc. It is crucial to explore the potential applications for expanding the functions of skyrmionic devices in this field To achieve this goal, it is of great essential for manipulation of skyrmion structures and their dynamic behaviors. The findings demonstrate an effective approach for tailoring skyrmion structures and controlling their dynamics behaviors via inhomogeneous PMA, which provide new routes to develop more skyrmion-based spintronic devices
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