Chiral Textures Research Articles

Large Chiral Orbital Texture and Orbital Edelstein Effect in Co/Al Heterostructure.

Recent experiments by S. Krishnia et al. [Nano Lett. 2023, 23, 6785] reported an unprecedentedly large enhancement of torques upon inserting thin Al layer in Co/Pt heterostructure that suggested the presence of a Rashba-like interaction at the metallic Co/Al interface. Based on first-principles calculations, we reveal the emergence of a large helical orbital texture in reciprocal space at the interfacial Co layer, whose origin is attributed to the orbital Rashba effect due to the formation of the surface states at the Co/Al interface and where spin-orbit coupling is found to produce smaller contributions with a higher-order winding of the orbital moments. Our results unveil that the orbital texture gives rise to a nonequilibrium orbital accumulation producing large current-induced torques, thus providing an essential theoretical background for the experimental data and advancing the use of orbital transport phenomena in all-metallic magnetic systems with light elements.

Chiral orbital texture in nonlinear electrical conduction

Chiral orbital texture in nonlinear electrical conduction

Emergent chiral spin textures in centrosymmetric iron garnet with spin alignment constraints

Chiral spin textures have emerged as a captivating class of topological matter. These intriguing structures harbor localized and topologically protected magnetic textures, rendering them promising candidates for novel spintronic applications. Here, the emergent chiral spin textures in an iron garnet with nanodisk configuration have been micromagnatically simulated based on the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation (LLG) of COMSOL Multiphysics. The modification of magnetic spin texture in the considered iron garnet has been controlled by introducing the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (I-DMI) and spin alignment constraints as locally pinned spins and curvilinear defects at edges. These boundary conditions induced interesting chiral textures not commonly observed in such iron garnet due to its centrosymmetric crystal structure. The simulation results showed the presence of two distinct regions of spin texture: inside and outside the pinning boundary. By systematically varying the DMI strength (D) with the size of the pinning boundary (Rpin) and the number of defects (Ndef), the emerging chiral spin textures have been explored and reported, including the existence of ramified helical stripes, skyrmions, and skyrmions-like textures such as elongated skyrmions, chiral horseshoe domains, biskyrmions and target skyrmions (TSk) (2π-TSk and 3π-TSk). Also, it has been reported that various collapses occur in the final spin texture states, leading to the transition from one state to another when varying the values of Rpin and Ndef with D.

Giant Tunability of Rashba Splitting at Cation-Exchanged Polar Oxide Interfaces by Selective Orbital Hybridization.

The 2D electron gas (2DEG) at oxide interfaces exhibits extraordinary properties, such as 2D superconductivity and ferromagnetism, coupled to strongly correlated electrons in narrow d-bands. In particular, 2DEGs in KTaO3 (KTO) with 5d t2g orbitals exhibit larger atomic spin-orbit coupling and crystal-facet-dependent superconductivity absent for 3d 2DEGs in SrTiO3 (STO). Herein, by tracing the interfacial chemistry, weak anti-localization magneto-transport behavior, and electronic structures of (001), (110), and (111) KTO 2DEGs, unambiguously cation exchange across KTO interfaces is discovered. Therefore, the origin of the 2DEGs at KTO-based interfaces is dramatically different from the electronicreconstruction observed at STO interfaces. More importantly, as the interface polarization grows with the higher order planes in the KTO case, the Rashba spin splitting becomes maximal for the superconducting (111) interfaces approximately twice that of the (001) interface. The larger Rashba spin splitting couples strongly to the asymmetric chiral texture of the orbital angular moment, and results mainly from the enhanced inter-orbital hopping of the t2g bands and more localized wave functions. This finding has profound implications for the search for topological superconductors, as well as the realization of efficient spin-charge interconversion for low-power spin-orbitronics based on (110) and (111) KTO interfaces.

Numerical simulation of the 2D lid-driven cavity flow of chiral liquid crystals

ABSTRACT In this study, the two-dimensional (2D), lid-driven cavity flow of chiral liquid crystals (LCs) was modelled using the Landau de-Gennes (LdG) theory. Parametric studies investigating the effect of Er (Ericksen number) and Θ (chiral strength) on the microstructure of chiral LCs were performed. In this study, we observed that an increase in Θ caused the chiral texture to have more striations and shorter pitch lengths as causes for an increased number of defects. When Θ was held constant, an increase in Er disrupted the chiral structure and even broke it at very high Er. Interestingly, a transition from low Er (10) to moderate Er (1,000) increased the number of defects; however, further increases in Er reduced the number of defects since much of the chiral structure was destroyed by the high viscous flow effects. In particular, even at very high Er, the chiral structure and defects were still present as a vortex was always present with lower velocities, where the viscous flow effect was smaller. We also found that a hexagonal structure with penta-hepta defects formed at high chiral strengths.

Circular stripe domains and cone state vortices in disk-shaped exchange coupled magnetic heterostructures

Vertically stacked exchange coupled magnetic heterostructures of cylindrical geometry can host complex noncolinear magnetization patterns. By tuning the interlayer exchange coupling between a layer accommodating magnetic vortex state and an out-of-plane magnetized layer, one can efficiently realize new topological chiral textures such as cone state vortices and circular stripe domains. We study how the number of circular stripes can be controlled by both the interlayer exchange coupling and the sample geometrical parameters. By varying geometrical parameters, a continuous phase transition between the homogeneous state, cone state vortex, circular stripe domains, and the imprinted vortex takes place, which is analysed by full scale micromagnetic simulations. The analytical description provides an intuitive pictures of the magnetization textures in each of these phases. The possibility to realize switching between different states allows for engineering magnetic textures with possible applications in spintronic devices.

Spontaneous and field-induced evolutions of 2D patterns in fingerprint chiral textures

• Formations of rounded polygonal-spiral shaped stable/field-induced FCTs are investigated. • Impacts of homeotropic anchoring on formations of stable FCTs and field-induced FCTs are studied. • The bistable states of the FCTs and the driving scheme to switch between them are investigated. • Characteristics and optical properties of other field-induced FCTs are studied. The spontaneous and field-induced evolutions of 2D patterns in fingerprint chiral textures (FCTs) in a cell treated with homeotropic alignment layers are reported. The study focuses on the stable FCTs#1 (weak scattering state) and stable FCTs#4 (strong scattering state), which are the two stable states of FCTs, and the formations of stable FCTs#1 with rounded polygonal spiral textures (RPSTs) and field-induced FCTs#1 domains with RPSTs. The formations can be explained by the ripping process of corn cells on a cob. The formation mechanisms of the stable FCTs#1 through the spontaneous evolution and stable FCTs#4 through a driving scheme are investigated. Homeotropic anchoring forces play important roles in the spontaneous evolution of FCTs to form the stable FCTs#1 and determine the existence of stable FCTs#4. Field-induced FCTs#1/FCTs#2/FCTs#3 are also investigated. The concept that FCTs tend to minimize the free energy by changing their arrangement is the key to elucidate several mechanisms/concepts in this paper. The driving scheme to switch between the stable FCTs#1 and stable FCTs#4 is reported. These bistable states can be applied to electronics to reduce power consumption.

Observation and simulation of toron polymorphism: Effects of surface anchoring, elasticity and electric field in cholesterics with smectic-A phase beneath

Toron is one of the fundamental chiral topological textures appearing in many spintronic and soft matter systems. Here we report on the observation of torons in cholesteric liquid crystals with positive dielectric anisotropy (Δε > 0). In addition, the materials show smectic-A phase beneath the cholesteric phase, enabling us to see the pretransitional effect on the formation of the torons. In detail, we investigated the relation of toron formability and the external stimuli in terms of temperature and electric field. Importantly, the divergence of the elastic constants (K22 and K33) in the vicinity of the nematic-smectic-A phase transition causes the transition from the toron to the homeotropic alignment. The results reveal that both the homeotropic anchoring strength and the frustrated confinement of the cholesteric helix are important to determine whether the toron texture is selected among other textures like fingers. The confinement ratio, i.e. the ratio of cell thickness to cholesteric pitch, for the incidence of torons was found to be in a wide range of about 0.82 ∼ 1.5. We also show that the torons can be polymer-stabilized so that they retain over a wide temperature window. Even more importantly, the orientational state of the polymer-stabilized toron can be changed by an electric field, realizing fast switching between the dark and bright states. The system may find applications in electric-driven diffraction gratings or privacy protection films with a sub-millisecond response time.

Chiral polarization textures induced by the flexoelectric effect in ferroelectric nanocylinders

Polar chiral structures have recently attracted much interest within the scientific community, as they pave the way towards innovative device concepts similar to the developments achieved in nanomagnetism. Despite the growing interest, many fundamental questions related to the mechanisms controlling the appearance and stability of ferroelectric topological structures remain open. In this context, ferroelectric nanoparticles provide a flexible playground for such investigations. Here, we present a theoretical study of ferroelectric polar textures in a cylindrical core-shell nanoparticle. The calculations reveal a chiral polarization structure containing two oppositely oriented diffuse axial domains located near the cylinder ends, separated by a region with a zero-axial polarization. We name this polarization configuration "flexon" to underline the flexoelectric nature of its axial polarization. Analytical calculations and numerical simulation results show that the flexon's chirality can be switched by reversing the sign of the flexoelectric coefficient. Furthermore, the anisotropy of the flexoelectric coupling is found to critically influence the polarization texture and domain morphology. The flexon rounded shape, combined with its distinct chiral properties and the localization nature near the surface, are reminiscent of Chiral Bobber structures in magnetism. In the azimuthal plane, the flexon displays the polarization state of a vortex with an axially polarized core region, i.e., a meron. The flexoelectric effect, which couples the electric polarization and elastic strain gradients, plays a determining role in the stabilization of these chiral states. We discuss similarities between this interaction and the recently predicted ferroelectric Dyzaloshinskii-Moriya interaction leading to chiral polarization states.

Dzyaloshinskii\u2013Moriya interaction in noncentrosymmetric superlattices

Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI) is considered as one of the most important energies for specific chiral textures such as magnetic skyrmions. The keys of generating DMI are the absence of structural inversion symmetry and exchange energy with spin–orbit coupling. Therefore, a vast majority of research activities about DMI are mainly limited to heavy metal/ferromagnet bilayer systems, only focusing on their interfaces. Here, we report an asymmetric band formation in a superlattices (SL) which arises from inversion symmetry breaking in stacking order of atomic layers, implying the role of bulk-like contribution. Such bulk DMI is more than 300% larger than simple sum of interfacial contribution. Moreover, the asymmetric band is largely affected by strong spin–orbit coupling, showing crucial role of a heavy metal even in the non-interfacial origin of DMI. Our work provides more degrees of freedom to design chiral magnets for spintronics applications.

Intermixing induced anisotropy variations in CoB-based chiral multilayer films

We examine the atomic intermixing phenomenon in three distinct amorphous CoB-based multilayer thin film platforms — Pt/CoB/Ir, Ir/CoB/Pt and Pt/CoB/MgO — which are shown to stabilise room-temperature chiral magnetic textures. Intermixing occurs predominantly between adjacent metallic layers. Notably, it is stack-order dependent, and particularly extensive when Ir sits atop CoB. Intermixing induced variations in magnetic properties are ascribed to the formation of magnetic dead layer arising from CoIr alloying in the metallic stacks. It also produces systematic variations in saturation magnetization, by as much as 30%, across stacks. Crucially, the resulting crossover CoB thickness for the transition from perpendicular to in-plane magnetic anisotropy differs by more than 2 across the stacks. Finally, with thermal annealing treatment over moderate temperatures of 150–300 °C, the magnetic anisotropy increases monotonically across all stacks, coupled with discernibly larger H c for the metallic stacks. These are attributed to thermally induced CoPt alloying and MgO crystallization in the metallic and oxide stacks, respectively. Remarkably, the CoB in the Pt/CoB/MgO stacks retains its amorphous nature after annealing. Our results set the stage for harnessing the collective attributes of amorphous CoB-based material platforms and associated annealing processes for modulating magnetic interactions, enabling the tuning of chiral magnetic texture properties in ambient conditions.

Fluorescent chiral liquid-crystalline networks with dual-mode temperature response

ABSTRACT Due to the excellent optical properties and great application prospects in the optical field, both pyrene compounds (PCs) and chiral liquid crystal have attracted extensive attention in theoretical research and practical applications. Fluorescent chiral liquid-crystalline networks (FCLCN) with good liquid-crystalline properties and tunable fluorescence properties as a response to temperature were prepared using Poly(methylhydrogeno)siloxane (PMHS), chiral liquid-crystalline monomer (M1), chiral crosslinker (M2) and organic fluorescent pyrene compounds (M3). The as-prepared FCLCN display reversible chiral Grandjean texture during the heating and cooling process from the intrinsic chiral arrangement of FCLCN. The discrete pyrene chromogenic segments in FCLCN matrix endowed the networks with excellent fluorescence properties when irradiating with ultraviolet light and the fluorescence can be precisely adjusted by temperature, furthermore, the FCLCN presents highly sensitive fluorescence evolution with a high response sensitivity of 3.4% K−1. The FCLCN can be manufactured into temperature-driven dynamic fluorescence patterns with a fast and reversible response.

Orbital Rashba effect in a surface-oxidized Cu film

Recent experimental observation of unexpectedly large current-induced spin-orbit torque in surface oxidized Cu on top of a ferromagnet suggested a possible role of the orbital Rashba effect (ORE). With this motivation, we investigate the ORE from first principles by considering an oxygen monolayer on top of a Cu(111) film. We show that surface oxidization of Cu film leads to gigantic enhancement of the ORE for states near the Fermi surface. The resulting chiral orbital texture in the momentum space is exceptionally strong, reaching $\sim 0.5\hbar$ in magnitude. We find that resonant hybridization between O $p$-states and Cu $d$-states is responsible for the emergence of the ORE. We demonstrate that application of an external electric field generates huge orbital Hall current, which is an order of magnitude larger than the spin Hall current found in heavy metals. This implies that "orbital torque" mechanism may be significant in surface oxidized Cu/ferromagnet structures. It also encourages experimental verification of the orbital texture in surface oxidized Cu through optical measurements such as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

Emulating spin transport with nonlinear optics, from high-order skyrmions to the topological Hall effect

Exploring material magnetization led to countless fundamental discoveries and applications, culminating in the field of spintronics. Recently, research effort in this field focused on magnetic skyrmions – topologically robust chiral magnetization textures, capable of storing information and routing spin currents via the topological Hall effect. In this article, we propose an optical system emulating any 2D spin transport phenomena with unprecedented controllability, by employing three-wave mixing in 3D nonlinear photonic crystals. Precise photonic crystal engineering, as well as active all-optical control, enable the realization of effective magnetization textures beyond the limits of thermodynamic stability in current materials. As a proof-of-concept, we theoretically design skyrmionic nonlinear photonic crystals with arbitrary topologies and propose an optical system exhibiting the topological Hall effect. Our work paves the way towards quantum spintronics simulations and novel optoelectronic applications inspired by spintronics, for both classical and quantum optical information processing.

Néel Skyrmionic States and Chiral Stripes in the Magnetic Bilayer with Transverse Easy Axis

Chiral spin structures, such as skyrmions, are topologically nontrivial magnetization configurations, which have potential applications in magnetic recording media. In particular, an antiferromagnetically coupled system that hosts skyrmions is of great interest because of high-speed skyrmion motion and reduced skyrmion Hall effect. Here, we consider TbCo/GdFe-based amorphous ferrimagnetic system showing chiral stripe domains and Neel-type skyrmions. It is observed that skyrmionic configurations are stabilized with the help of dipolar interactions that exist in the system. Optimized thicknesses of TbCo (30 nm) and GdFe (6 nm) show isolated skyrmions in both the layers with average skyrmion diameter of 40 ± 5 nm. We have also investigated a phase diagram in a wide range of layer thickness, which represents the presence of the mixture of either vortex, chiral stripes, or/and Neel-type skyrmions. To understand the underlying phenomena which help chiral ferrimagnetism in this kind of amorphous system, we perform layer-resolved micromagnetic modeling. We found variety of chiral textures in a wide thickness range of ferrimagnetic bilayer systems, which may be useful for fundamental understanding of formation of skyrmion and their application in spintronic devices.

Topological flat bands in frustrated kagome lattice CoSn

Electronic flat bands in momentum space, arising from strong localization of electrons in real space, are an ideal stage to realize strongly-correlated phenomena. Theoretically, the flat bands can naturally arise in certain geometrically frustrated lattices, often with nontrivial topology if combined with spin-orbit coupling. Here, we report the observation of topological flat bands in frustrated kagome metal CoSn, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and band structure calculations. Throughout the entire Brillouin zone, the bandwidth of the flat band is suppressed by an order of magnitude compared to the Dirac bands originating from the same orbitals. The frustration-driven nature of the flat band is directly confirmed by the chiral d-orbital texture of the corresponding real-space Wannier functions. Spin-orbit coupling opens a large gap of 80 meV at the quadratic touching point between the Dirac and flat bands, endowing a nonzero Z2 invariant to the flat band. These findings demonstrate that kagome-derived flat bands are a promising platform for novel emergent phases of matter at the confluence of strong correlation and topology.

Electric and antiferromagnetic chiral textures at multiferroic domain walls.

Chirality, a foundational concept throughout science, may arise at ferromagnetic domain walls1 and in related objects such as skyrmions2. However, chiral textures should also exist in other types of ferroic materials, such as antiferromagnets, for which theory predicts that they should move faster for lower power3, and ferroelectrics, where they should be extremely small and possess unusual topologies4,5. Here, we report the concomitant observation of antiferromagnetic and electric chiral textures at domain walls in the room-temperature ferroelectric antiferromagnet BiFeO3. Combining reciprocal and real-space characterization techniques, we reveal the presence of periodic chiral antiferromagnetic objects along the domain walls as well as a priori energetically unfavourable chiral ferroelectric domain walls. We discuss the mechanisms underlying their formation and their relevance for electrically controlled topological oxide electronics and spintronics.

The evolution of skyrmions in Ir/Fe/Co/Pt multilayers and their topological Hall signature

The topological Hall effect (THE) is the Hall response to an emergent magnetic field, a manifestation of the skyrmion Berry-phase. As the magnitude of THE in magnetic multilayers is an open question, it is imperative to develop comprehensive understanding of skyrmions and other chiral textures, and their electrical fingerprint. Here, using Hall-transport and magnetic-imaging in a technologically viable multilayer film, we show that topological-Hall resistivity scales with the isolated-skyrmion density over a wide range of temperature and magnetic-field, confirming the impact of the skyrmion Berry-phase on electronic transport. While we establish qualitative agreement between the topological-Hall resistivity and the topological-charge density, our quantitative analysis shows much larger topological-Hall resistivity than the prevailing theory predicts for the observed skyrmion density. Our results are fundamental for the skyrmion-THE in multilayers, where interfacial interactions, multiband transport and non-adiabatic effects play an important role, and for skyrmion applications relying on THE.

Analysis on the stability of in-surface magnetic configurations in toroidal nanoshells

Curvature of nanomagnets can be used to induce chiral textures in the magnetization field. Here we perform analytical calculations and micromagnetic simulations aiming to analyze the stability of in-surface magnetization configurations in toroidal nanomagnets. We have obtained that despite toroidal vortex-like configurations are highly stable in magnetic nanotori, the interplay between geometry and magnetic properties promotes the competition between effective interactions yielding the development of a core in a vortex state when the aspect ratio between internal and external radii of nanoturus is $\gtrsim0.75$.

Toward Chirality‐Encoded Domain Wall Logic

AbstractNonvolatile logic networks based on spintronic and nanomagnetic technologies have the potential to create high‐speed, ultralow power computational architectures. This article explores the feasibility of “chirality‐encoded domain wall logic,” a nanomagnetic logic architecture where data are encoded by the chiral structures of mobile domain walls in networks of ferromagnetic nanowires and processed by the chiral structures' interactions with geometric features of the networks. High‐resolution magnetic imaging is used to test two critical functionalities: the inversion of domain wall chirality at tailored artificial defect sites (logical NOT gates) and the chirality‐selective output of domain walls from 2‐in‐1‐out nanowire junctions (common operation to AND/NAND/OR/NOR gates). The measurements demonstrate both operations can be performed to a good degree of fidelity even in the presence of complex magnetization dynamics that would normally be expected to destroy chirality‐encoded information. Together, these results represent a strong indication of the feasibility of devices where chiral magnetization textures are used to directly carry, rather than merely delineate, data.