Nucleation and manipulation of skyrmions by spin currents mediated by an antiferromagnetic layer

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions can be used as information carriers in advanced memories, logic gates and computing devices in the future. How to generate skyrmions rapidly in zero field becomes an urgent problem. The application of spin currents will play a major role in promoting the applications of skyrmions in spintronic devices. In this paper, we propose a mechanism based on spin currents to generate skyrmions. A multilayer structure (Pt/Cr2O3/Co/Pt) is designed, where an antiferromagnetic layer (Cr2O3) is inserted into the traditional trilayer structure (Pt/Co/Pt). A spin current generated on the heavy metal layer makes the magnetizations of the antiferromagnetic layer oscillate, and then the magnetizations in the ferromagnetic layer are driven to oscillate through the interlayer exchange interaction, and magnetic skyrmions can finally be nucleated in the Co layer. Through this unique combination of spin currents and antiferromagnetic layers, we effectively reduce the current density and increase operability, and this application provides more possibilities for future information transmission.