Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Item
    Flexomagnetism and vertically graded Néel temperature of antiferromagnetic Cr2O3 thin films
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2022) Makushko, Pavlo; Kosub, Tobias; Pylypovskyi, Oleksandr V.; Hedrich, Natascha; Li, Jiang; Pashkin, Alexej; Avdoshenko, Stanislav; Hübner, René; Ganss, Fabian; Wolf, Daniel; Lubk, Axel; Liedke, Maciej Oskar; Butterling, Maik; Wagner, Andreas; Wagner, Kai; Shields, Brendan J.; Lehmann, Paul; Veremchuk, Igor; Fassbender, Jürgen; Maletinsky, Patrick; Makarov, Denys
    Antiferromagnetic insulators are a prospective materials platform for magnonics, spin superfluidity, THz spintronics, and non-volatile data storage. A magnetomechanical coupling in antiferromagnets offers vast advantages in the control and manipulation of the primary order parameter yet remains largely unexplored. Here, we discover a new member in the family of flexoeffects in thin films of Cr2O3. We demonstrate that a gradient of mechanical strain can impact the magnetic phase transition resulting in the distribution of the Néel temperature along the thickness of a 50-nm-thick film. The inhomogeneous reduction of the antiferromagnetic order parameter induces a flexomagnetic coefficient of about 15 μB nm−2. The antiferromagnetic ordering in the inhomogeneously strained films can persist up to 100 °C, rendering Cr2O3 relevant for industrial electronics applications. Strain gradient in Cr2O3 thin films enables fundamental research on magnetomechanics and thermodynamics of antiferromagnetic solitons, spin waves and artificial spin ice systems in magnetic materials with continuously graded parameters.
  • Item
    Manipulating topological states by imprinting non-collinear spin textures
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2015) Streubel, Robert; Han, Luyang; Im, Mi-Young; Kronast, Florian; Rößler, Ulrich K.; Radu, Florin; Abrudan, Radu; Lin, Gungun; Schmidt, Oliver G.; Fischer, Peter; Makarov, Denys
    Topological magnetic states, such as chiral skyrmions, are of great scientific interest and show huge potential for novel spintronics applications, provided their topological charges can be fully controlled. So far skyrmionic textures have been observed in noncentrosymmetric crystalline materials with low symmetry and at low temperatures. We propose theoretically and demonstrate experimentally the design of spin textures with topological charge densities that can be tailored at ambient temperatures. Tuning the interlayer coupling in vertically stacked nanopatterned magnetic heterostructures, such as a model system of a Co/Pd multilayer coupled to Permalloy, the in-plane non-collinear spin texture of one layer can be imprinted into the out-of-plane magnetised material. We observe distinct spin textures, e.g. vortices, magnetic swirls with tunable opening angle, donut states and skyrmion core configurations. We show that applying a small magnetic field, a reliable switching between topologically distinct textures can be achieved at remanence.
  • Item
    Retrieving spin textures on curved magnetic thin films with full-field soft X-ray microscopies
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2015) Streubel, Robert; Kronast, Florian; Fischer, Peter; Parkinson, Dula; Schmidt, Oliver G.; Makarov, Denys
    X-ray tomography is a well-established technique to characterize 3D structures in material sciences and biology; its magnetic analogue--magnetic X-ray tomography--is yet to be developed. Here we demonstrate the visualization and reconstruction of magnetic domain structures in a 3D curved magnetic thin films with tubular shape by means of full-field soft X-ray microscopies. The 3D arrangement of the magnetization is retrieved from a set of 2D projections by analysing the evolution of the magnetic contrast with varying projection angle. Using reconstruction algorithms to analyse the angular evolution of 2D projections provides quantitative information about domain patterns and magnetic coupling phenomena between windings of azimuthally and radially magnetized tubular objects. The present approach represents a first milestone towards visualizing magnetization textures of 3D curved thin films with virtually arbitrary shape.
  • Item
    Chirality coupling in topological magnetic textures with multiple magnetochiral parameters
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2023) Volkov, Oleksii M.; Wolf, Daniel; Pylypovskyi, Oleksandr V.; Kákay, Attila; Sheka, Denis D.; Büchner, Bernd; Fassbender, Jürgen; Lubk, Axel; Makarov, Denys
    Chiral effects originate from the lack of inversion symmetry within the lattice unit cell or sample’s shape. Being mapped onto magnetic ordering, chirality enables topologically non-trivial textures with a given handedness. Here, we demonstrate the existence of a static 3D texture characterized by two magnetochiral parameters being magnetic helicity of the vortex and geometrical chirality of the core string itself in geometrically curved asymmetric permalloy cap with a size of 80 nm and a vortex ground state. We experimentally validate the nonlocal chiral symmetry breaking effect in this object, which leads to the geometric deformation of the vortex string into a helix with curvature 3 μm−1 and torsion 11 μm−1. The geometric chirality of the vortex string is determined by the magnetic helicity of the vortex texture, constituting coupling of two chiral parameters within the same texture. Beyond the vortex state, we anticipate that complex curvilinear objects hosting 3D magnetic textures like curved skyrmion tubes and hopfions can be characterized by multiple coupled magnetochiral parameters, that influence their statics and field- or current-driven dynamics for spin-orbitronics and magnonics.