Nanowerk December 17, 2021 The key to creating spintronics devices is the ability to effectively manipulate, and measure, a single skyrmion. Researchers in Japan used a thin magnetic plate made up of a compound of cobalt, zinc, and manganese, Co9Zn9Mn2 to observe the dynamics of a single skyrmion at room temperature. They were able to track the motions of the skyrmion and control its Hall motion directions by flipping the magnetic field when they subjected it to ultrafast pulses of electric current—on the scale of nanoseconds. They found that the skyrmion’s motion demonstrated a dynamic transition from a pinned static […]
Category Archives: Skyrmions
By keeping ferroelectric ‘bubbles’ intact, researchers pave way for new devices
Phys.org November 19, 2021 Bubble-like domains, typically a precursor to the electrical skyrmions, arise in ultrathin complex oxide ferroelectric–dielectric–ferroelectric heterostructures epitaxially clamped with flat substrates. An international team of researchers (USA – Argonne National Laboratory, University of Arkansas, University of Chicago, Australia) peeled off heterostructure thin films containing electrical bubbles from the substrate, while keeping them fully intact. To establish that the bubble domains remained intact, they measured the capacitance and piezoelectric properties and found they stayed relatively stable up to a high voltage. The combination of experiment and simulation proved conclusively that these bubbles can live even when removed […]
Scientists successfully manipulate a single skyrmion at room temperature
Nanowerk November 24, 2021 The key to creating spintronics devices is the ability to effectively manipulate, and measure, a single tiny vortex. Researchers in Japan used a thin magnetic plate made up of a compound of cobalt, zinc, and manganese which is known as a chiral-lattice magnet. They directly observed the dynamics of a single skyrmion at room temperature and tracked the motions of the skyrmion and control its Hall motion directions by flipping the magnetic field when they subjected it to ultrafast pulses of electric current—on the scale of nanoseconds. They found that the skyrmion’s motion demonstrated a dynamic […]
Skyrmion research: Braids of nanovortices discovered
Phys.org October 6, 2021 Braided structures are commonly seen in nature. An international team of researchers (Germany, Sweden, China) has discovered that such structures exist on the nanoscale in alloys of iron and the metalloid germanium. These nanostrings are each made up of several skyrmions that are twisted together to a greater or lesser extent, rather like the strands of a rope. Each skyrmion itself consists of magnetic moments that point in different directions and together take the form of an elongated tiny vortex. The length of the magnetic structures is limited only by the thickness of the sample. Earlier […]
Special heat treatment improves novel magnetic material
Science Daily March 31, 2021 Previously an international team of researchers (Germany, China) discovered that manganese silicide hosts magnetic skyrmions. Whereas Mn-Si alloy, B20 phase, is particularly suitable for the formation of skyrmion, MnSi1.7 is a contaminant. Now the team has developed a simple and efficient method to overcome this problem and prepare single‐phase MnSi films on Si substrates. It is based on the millisecond reaction between metallic Mn and Si using flash‐lamp annealing (FLA). By controlling the FLA energy density, single‐phase MnSi or MnSi1.7 or their mixture can be grown at will. Compared with bulk MnSi, the prepared MnSi […]
Skyrmions proposed as the basis for a completely new computer architecture
Phys.org December 21, 2020 Materials hosting magnetic skyrmions at room temperature could enable compact and energetically efficient storage such as racetrack memories. However, avoiding modifications of the inter-skyrmion distances remains challenging. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, Greece, Austria, Italy) has demonstrated that a hybrid ferro/ferri/ferromagnetic multilayer system can host two distinct skyrmion phases at room temperature, namely tubular and partial skyrmions. Furthermore, the tubular skyrmion can be converted into a partial skyrmion. Such systems may serve as a platform for designing memory applications using distinct skyrmion types…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Magnetic whirls in future data storage devices
Eurekalert March 3, 2020 Researchers in Germany discovered that skyrmions and antiskyrmions are stabilized in different materials by a magnetic interaction that is directly tied to the structure of the host material. However, what was previously overlooked is that the magnetic dipoles also significantly interact with each other via their dipole-dipole interaction. This interaction always prefers skyrmions. For this reason, even “antiskyrmion materials” can exhibit skyrmions (but not vice versa). This happens preferably as the temperature is lowered. At a critical transition temperature, the two distinct objects coexist. The finding allows for an advanced version of the racetrack memory data […]
Skyrmions like it hot: Spin structures are controllable even at high temperatures
Nanowerk February 13, 2020 When a skyrmion is driven by an electric current it propagates at skyrmion Hall angle (SkHA). This drive dependence, as well as thermal effects due to Joule heating, could be used to tailor skyrmion trajectories, but are not well understood. An international team of researchers (Germany, Belgium, USA – MIT, Czech Republic) had previously demonstrated the use of new spin structures for future magnetic storage devices. In their new research they report skyrmion dynamics as a function of temperature and drive amplitude. They found the skyrmion velocity depends strongly on temperature, while the skyrmion Hall angle […]
The first high-speed straight motion of magnetic skyrmions at room temperature demonstrated
Phys.org November 19, 2019 The magnetic skyrmion can be driven by low current density and has a potential to be stabilized in nanoscale offering new directions of spintronics. However, there remain some fundamental issues in widely studied ferromagnetic systems which include a difficulty to realize stable ultra-small skyrmions at room temperature, presence of the skyrmion Hall effect, and limitation of velocity owing to the topological charge. Researchers in Japan have shown that skyrmion bubbles in a synthetic antiferromagnetic coupled multilayer are free from the above issues. Additive Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and spin-orbit torque (SOT) of the tailored stack allow stable skyrmion […]
A step towards probabilistic computing (w/video)
Eurekalert May 14, 2019 In the search for new computer concepts, research is concentrating, amongst others, on probability-based computing. Researchers in Germany have succeeded in developing a material in which skyrmions can form. The researchers have also developed a method to exploit thermal diffusion of skyrmions in what is referred to as a reshuffler, a component of probability-based computing that automatically scrambles input data. The reshuffler produces a sequence with the same number of memory units but in a different order. Their probability has therefore remained the same. They have shown according to which laws diffusion occurs, its length and […]