Abstract
Magnetic skyrmions are prime candidates as information carriers for spintronic devices due to their topological nature and nanometric size. However, unavoidable inhomogeneities inherent to any material leads to pinning or repulsion of skyrmions that, in analogy to biology concepts, define the phenotype of the skyrmion-defect interaction, generating complexity in their motion and challenging their application as future bits of information. Here, we demonstrate that atom-by-atom manufacturing of multi-atomic defects, being antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic, permits the breeding of their energy profiles, for which we build schematically a Punnet-square. As established from first-principles for skyrmions generated in PdFe bilayer on Ir(111) surface, the resulting interaction phenotype is rich. It can be opposite to the original one and eventually be of dual pinning-repulsive nature yielding energy landscapes hosting multi-domains. This is dictated by the stacking site, geometry, size and chemical nature of the adsorbed defects, which control the involved magnetic interactions. This work provides new insights towards the development of disruptive device architectures incorporating defects into their design aiming to control and guide skyrmions.
Highlights
Magnetic skyrmions are prime candidates as information carriers for spintronic devices due to their topological nature and nanometric size
Of great technological relevance are skyrmions in thin films and magnetic multilayers[12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22], which can be stabilized as a result of the competition among the Heisenberg exchange interaction (HEI), Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI)[23,24] and the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy
We demonstrate that multi-atomic defects can behave in stark contrast to their singleatom counterpart when interacting with a magnetic skyrmion
Summary
Magnetic skyrmions are prime candidates as information carriers for spintronic devices due to their topological nature and nanometric size. It can be opposite to the original one and eventually be of dual pinning-repulsive nature yielding energy landscapes hosting multi-domains. This is dictated by the stacking site, geometry, size and chemical nature of the adsorbed defects, which control the involved magnetic interactions. Skyrmions experience pinning and magnetic vortices with cores containing thousands of atoms This was visualized with spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy, which was utilized to extract the pinning strength by moving vortices across defects with a vector magnetic field[38]. We demonstrate that multi-atomic defects can behave in stark contrast to their singleatom counterpart when interacting with a magnetic skyrmion. To concepts known in biology, they coexist in each defect
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
