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    Inhomogeneous ferromagnetism mimics signatures of the topological Hall effect in SrRuO3 films
    (College Park, MD : APS, 2020) Kim, Gideok; Son, K.; Suyolcu, Y.E.; Miao, L.; Schreiber, N.J.; Nair, H.P.; Putzky, D.; Minola, M.; Christiani, G.; van Aken, P.A.; Shen, K.M.; Schlom, D.G.; Logvenov, G.; Keimer, B.
    Topological transport phenomena in magnetic materials are a major topic of current condensed matter research. One of the most widely studied phenomena is the topological Hall effect (THE), which is generated via spin-orbit interactions between conduction electrons and topological spin textures such as skyrmions. We report a comprehensive set of Hall effect and magnetization measurements on epitaxial films of the prototypical ferromagnetic metal SrRuO3 the magnetic and transport properties of which were systematically modulated by varying the concentration of Ru vacancies. We observe Hall effect anomalies that closely resemble signatures of the THE, but a quantitative analysis demonstrates that they result from inhomogeneities in the ferromagnetic magnetization caused by a nonrandom distribution of Ru vacancies. As such inhomogeneities are difficult to avoid and are rarely characterized independently, our results call into question the identification of topological spin textures in numerous prior transport studies of quantum materials, heterostructures, and devices. Firm conclusions regarding the presence of such textures must meet stringent conditions such as probes that couple directly to the noncollinear magnetization on the atomic scale.
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    What is the speed limit of martensitic transformations?
    (Abingdon : Taylor & Francis, 2022) Schwabe, Stefan; Lünser, Klara; Schmidt, Daniel; Nielsch, Kornelius; Gaal, Peter; Fähler, Sebastian
    Structural martensitic transformations enable various applications, which range from high stroke actuation and sensing to energy efficient magnetocaloric refrigeration and thermomagnetic energy harvesting. All these emerging applications benefit from a fast transformation, but up to now their speed limit has not been explored. Here, we demonstrate that a thermoelastic martensite to austenite transformation can be completed within 10 ns. We heat epitaxial Ni-Mn-Ga films with a nanosecond laser pulse and use synchrotron diffraction to probe the influence of initial temperature and overheating on transformation rate and ratio. We demonstrate that an increase in thermal energy drives this transformation faster. Though the observed speed limit of 2.5 × 1027 (Js)1 per unit cell leaves plenty of room for further acceleration of applications, our analysis reveals that the practical limit will be the energy required for switching. Thus, martensitic transformations obey similar speed limits as in microelectronics, as expressed by the Margolus–Levitin theorem.