Tailoring the chiral magnetic interaction between two individual atoms.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26902332.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms10620 and PMC identifier 4766390.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Chiral magnets are a promising route towards dense magnetic storage technology due to their inherent nano-scale dimensions and energy efficient properties. Engineering chiral magnets requires atomic-level control of the magnetic exchange interactions, including the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which defines a rotational sense for the magnetization of two coupled magnetic moments. Here we show that the indirect conduction electron-mediated Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction between two individual magnetic atoms on a metallic surface can be manipulated by changing the interatomic distance with the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope. We quantify this interaction by comparing our measurements to a quantum magnetic model and ab-initio calculations yielding a map of the chiral ground states of pairs of atoms depending on the interatomic separation. The map enables tailoring the chirality of the magnetization in dilute atomic-scale magnets.