Spin-orbit enabled all-electrical readout of chiral spin-textures

Abstract

Chirality and topology are intimately related fundamental concepts, which are heavily explored to establish spin-textures as potential magnetic bits in information technology. However, this ambition is inhibited since the electrical reading of chiral attributes is highly non-trivial with conventional current perpendicular-to-plane (CPP) sensing devices. Here we demonstrate from extensive first-principles simulations and multiple scattering expansion the emergence of the chiral spin-mixing magnetoresistance (C-XMR) enabling highly efficient all-electrical readout of the chirality and helicity of respectively one- and two-dimensional magnetic states of matter. It is linear with spin-orbit coupling in contrast to the quadratic dependence associated with the unveiled non-local spin-mixing anisotropic MR (X-AMR). Such transport effects are systematized on various non-collinear magnetic states – spin-spirals and skyrmions – and compared to the uncovered spin-orbit-independent multi-site magnetoresistances. Owing to their simple implementation in readily available reading devices, the proposed magnetoresistances offer exciting and decisive ingredients to explore with all-electrical means the rich physics of topological and chiral magnetic objects.

Emergence of zero-field non-synthetic single and interchanged antiferromagnetic skyrmions in thin films

“…The latter is induced by the heavy Ir substrate, which has a strong spin-orbit coupling. Upon application of a magnetic field, sub 10-nm FM skyrmions are formed 21,25,[61][62][63][64][65] .…”

Interplay of magnetic states and hyperfine fields of iron dimers on MgO(001)

“…The theory is similar to the one utilized to explain the spin-mixing magnetoresistance in Refs. [62,63,64,65] or higher-order magnetic interactions in Refs. [66,67,68,69].…”

Topological quasiparticles of light: Optical skyrmions and beyond

“…The quasiparticles emerging in this mathematical model were named as skyrmions. Since then, skyrmions-the generalized topological quasiparticles-have been considered in many contexts, including nucleons [4,5], Bose-Einstein condensates [6], liquid crystals [7], and magnetic materials [8][9][10][11][12], and most recently twistronics [13]. The most known type of skyrmions is the magnetic skyrmions in chiral magnets formed by a magnetization texture [14], which are readily observable in real space [15].…”

“…The most known type of skyrmions is the magnetic skyrmions in chiral magnets formed by a magnetization texture [14], which are readily observable in real space [15]. Magnetic skyrmions opened new avenues in large-capacity information encoding and low-energy magnetic memory [9][10][11][12]. Very recently, skyrmionic structures were observed in optics [16,17]: with two independent works on the "oscillating" field-skyrmion lattice in the especially shaped surface-plasmon polariton (SPP) resonator [18], a "steady" individual spin-skyrmions in the SPP field in the presence of spin-orbit coupling [19].…”