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Operando study of chiral magnetic textures under electrical bias using Lorentz scanning transmission electron microscopy

ORAL

Abstract

We develop a device fabrication process that is compatible with operando Lorentz Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (LSTEM) for studying chiral magnetic textures and their electric current dependent behavior with nanometer-scale spatial resolution. Chiral magnetic spin textures appear in our samples as a result of the interplay between magnetic energy terms including interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) at heavy metal/ferromagnet interfaces. High-resolution LSTEM can resolve the internal structure of spin textures including details as small as a few nm. As a first step, we examine stripe domain and field nucleated Néel Skyrmions in devices as we vary the stack repetition and ferromagnet thicknesses. We find rich magnetic textures with a strong history dependence as the magnitude of PMA approaches zero.

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Presenters

  • Albert Park

    School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University

Authors

  • Albert Park

    School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University

  • Zhen Chen

    Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Cornell University, School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University

  • Lijun Zhu

    Cornell University, School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University

  • Robert Buhrman

    School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Cornell University, Physics, Cornell University

  • David Muller

    Cornell University, School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University

  • Gregory Fuchs

    Cornell University, School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University