Correlation between spin structure oscillations and domain wall velocities

Magnetic sensing and logic devices based on the motion of magnetic domain walls rely on the precise and deterministic control of the position and the velocity of individual magnetic domain walls in curved nanowires. Varying domain wall velocities have been predicted to result from intrinsic effects such as oscillating domain wall spin structure transformations and extrinsic pinning due to imperfections. Here we use direct dynamic imaging of the nanoscale spin structure that allows us for the first time to directly check these predictions. We find a new regime of oscillating domain wall motion even below the Walker breakdown correlated with periodic spin structure changes. We show that the e…

Correlation between spin structure oscillations and domain wall velocities (presentation video)

Magnetic sensing and logic devices based on the motion of magnetic domain walls rely on the precise and deterministic control of the position and the velocity of individual magnetic domain walls. Varying domain wall velocities have been predicted to result from intrinsic effects such as oscillating domain wall spin structure transformations and extrinsic pinning due to imperfections. We use direct dynamic imaging of the nanoscale spin structure to directly check these predictions. We find a new regime of oscillating domain wall motion even below the Walker breakdown correlated with periodic spin structure changes and we show that the extrinsic pinning from defects in the nanowire only affec…

Enhanced Nonadiabaticity in Vortex Cores due to the Emergent Hall Effect.

We present a combined theoretical and experimental study, investigating the origin of the enhanced non-adiabaticity of magnetic vortex cores. Scanning transmission X-ray microscopy is used to image the vortex core gyration dynamically to measure the non-adiabaticity with high precision, including a high confidence upper bound. Using both numerical computations and analytical derivations, we show that the large non-adiabaticity parameter observed experimentally can be explained by the presence of local spin currents arising from a texture-induced emergent Hall effect. This enhanced non-adiabaticity is only present in two- and three-dimensional magnetic textures such as vortices and skyrmions…

Dynamics and inertia of skyrmionic spin structures

Understanding the motion of magnetic skyrmions is essential if they are to be used as information carriers in devices. It is now shown that topological confinement endows the skyrmions with an unexpectedly large mass, which plays a key role in their dynamics.

Dynamics and topological mass of skyrmionic spin structures (presentation video)

Skyrmions are topologically protected particle-like configurations, with a topological complexity described by their Skyrmion number. In magnetic systems, they have been numerically predicted to exhibit rich dynamics, such as the gyrotropic and breathing modes, dominated by their topology. Recent experimental advances brought their static manipulation well under control. However, their dynamical behaviour is largely unexplored experimentally. In this work, we provide with the first direct observation of eigenmode skyrmion dynamics. In particular, we present dynamical imaging data with high temporal and spatial resolution to demonstrate the GHz gyrotropic mode of a single skyrmion bubble, as…

Dynamic domain wall chirality rectification by rotating magnetic fields

Magnetic states in low-pinning high-anisotropy material nanostructures suitable for dynamic imaging

We present magnetic domain states in a material configuration with high (perpendicular) magnetic anisotropy and particularly low magnetic pinning. This material, a B-doped Co/Pt multilayer configuration, exhibits a strong magnetic contrast in x-ray transmission experiments, making it apt for dynamic imaging with modern synchrotron techniques, providing high spatial and high temporal resolution simultaneously. By analyzing the static spin structures in nanodisks at variable external fields, we show that CoB/Pt multilayers exhibit low enough domain wall pinning to manipulate the domain pattern with weak stimuli and in particular to move domains and domain walls. We demonstrate in a proof-of-p…

Dynamic domain wall chirality rectification by rotating magnetic fields

We report on the observation of magnetic vortex domain wall chirality reversal in ferromagnetic rings that is controlled by the sense of rotation of a magnetic field. We use time-resolved X-ray microscopy to dynamically image the chirality-switching process and perform micromagnetic simulations to deduce the switching details from time-resolved snapshots. We find experimentally that the switching occurs within less than 4 ns and is observed in all samples with ring widths ranging from 0.5 μm to 2 μm, ring diameters between 2 μm and 5 μm, and a thickness of 30 nm, where a vortex domain wall is present in the magnetic onion state of the ring. From the magnetic contrast in the time-resolved im…