Diameter-independent skyrmion Hall angle observed in chiral magnetic multilayers.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31969569.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-14232-9 and PMC identifier 6976618.
- 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
Magnetic skyrmions are topologically non-trivial nanoscale objects. Their topology, which originates in their chiral domain wall winding, governs their unique response to a motion-inducing force. When subjected to an electrical current, the chiral winding of the spin texture leads to a deflection of the skyrmion trajectory, characterised by an angle with respect to the applied force direction. This skyrmion Hall angle is predicted to be skyrmion diameter-dependent. In contrast, our experimental study finds that the skyrmion Hall angle is diameter-independent for skyrmions with diameters ranging from 35 to 825 nm. At an average velocity of 6 ± 1 ms<sup>-1</sup>, the average skyrmion Hall angle was measured to be 9° ± 2°. In fact, the skyrmion dynamics is dominated by the local energy landscape such as materials defects and the local magnetic configuration.