Nucleation of magnetic skyrmions at a notch

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are considered promising candidates for coding bits of information in racetrack memory devices. Information recording in such devices is assumed to occur by creating skyrmions. This work is devoted to finding solutions to make this process as energy-efficient as possible. One of the factors influencing the creation of skyrmions is the geometry of the track on which recording takes place. We study the influence of the shape and size of track boundary notches on the energy barriers of skyrmion nucleation. We show that skyrmions generation is facilitated by the presence of irregularities at the track boundary and the best solution is a deep narrow notch. On the other hand the skyrmion nucleation rate is smaller for smooth boundaries and skyrmions generation can be suppressed by their interaction with the track boundary, if notch size is smaller than the skyrmion radius. These results can be used in development of future memory devices based on skyrmions.