Search results for "Nanoscale"
showing 10 items of 752 documents
Revealing the importance of interfaces for pure spin current transport
2021
Spin transport phenomena underpin an extensive range of spintronic effects. In particular spin transport across interfaces occurs in most device concepts, but is so far poorly understood. As interface properties strongly impact spin transport, one needs to characterize and correlate them to the fabrication method. Here we investigate pure spin current transport across interfaces and connect this with imaging of the interfaces. We study the detection of pure spin currents via the inverse spin Hall effect in Pt and the related spin current absorption by Pt in Py-Cu-Pt lateral spin valves. Depending on the fabrication process, we either find a large (inverse) spin Hall effect signal and low sp…
Effect of boundary-induced chirality on magnetic textures in thin films
2018
In the quest for miniaturizing magnetic devices, the effects of boundaries and surfaces become increasingly important. Here we show how the recently predicted boundary-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) affects the magnetization of ferromagnetic films with a $C_{\infty v}$ symmetry and a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. For an otherwise uniformly magnetized film, we find a surface twist when the magnetization in the bulk is canted by an in-plane external field. This twist at the surfaces caused by the boundary-induced DMI differs from the common canting caused by internal DMI observed at the edges of a chiral magnet. Further, we find that the surface twist due to the boundary…
Thermal conductivity of group-IV Semiconductors from a Kinetic-Collective Model
2014
The thermal conductivity of group-IV semiconductors (silicon, germanium, diamond and grey tin) with several isotopic compositions has been calculated from a kinetic-collective model. From this approach, significantly different to Callaway-like models in its physical interpretation, the thermal conductivity expression accounts for a transition from a kinetic (individual phonon transport) to a collective (hydrodynamic phonon transport) behaviour of the phonon field. Within the model, we confirm the theoretical proportionality between the phonon–phonon relaxation times of the group-IV semiconductors. This proportionality depends on some materials properties and it allows us to predict the ther…
Direct method for calculating temperature-dependent transport properties
2015
We show how temperature-induced disorder can be combined in a direct way with first-principles scattering theory to study diffusive transport in real materials. Excellent (good) agreement with experiment is found for the resistivity of Cu, Pd, Pt (and Fe) when lattice (and spin) disorder are calculated from first principles. For Fe, the agreement with experiment is limited by how well the magnetization (of itinerant ferromagnets) can be calculated as a function of temperature. By introducing a simple Debye-like model of spin disorder parameterized to reproduce the experimental magnetization, the temperature dependence of the average resistivity, the anisotropic magnetoresistance and the spi…
Nonmagnetic and magnetic thiolate-protected Au25superatoms on Cu(111), Ag(111), and Au(111) surfaces
2012
Geometry, electronic structure, and magnetic properties of methylthiolate-stabilized Au$_{25}$L$_{18}$ and MnAu$_{24}$L$_{18}$ (L = SCH$_3$) clusters adsorbed on noble-metal (111) surfaces have been investigated by using spin-polarized density functional theory computations. The interaction between the cluster and the surface is found to be mediated by charge transfer mainly from or into the ligand monolayer. The electronic properties of the 13-atom metal core remain in all cases rather undisturbed as compared to the isolated clusters in gas phase. The Au$_{25}$L$_{18}$ cluster retains a clear HOMO - LUMO energy gap in the range of 0.7 eV to 1.0 eV depending on the surface. The ligand layer…
Infrared plasmons propagate through a hyperbolic nodal metal
2022
Metals are canonical plasmonic media at infrared and optical wavelengths, allowing one to guide and manipulate light at the nanoscale. A special form of optical waveguiding is afforded by highly anisotropic crystals revealing the opposite signs of the dielectric functions along orthogonal directions. These media are classified as hyperbolic and include crystalline insulators, semiconductors, and artificial metamaterials. Layered anisotropic metals are also anticipated to support hyperbolic waveguiding. However, this behavior remains elusive, primarily because interband losses arrest the propagation of infrared modes. Here, we report on the observation of propagating hyperbolic waves in a pr…
Skyrmion pinning energetics in thin film systems
2022
AbstractA key issue for skyrmion dynamics and devices are pinning effects present in real systems. While posing a challenge for the realization of conventional skyrmionics devices, exploiting pinning effects can enable non-conventional computing approaches if the details of the pinning in real samples are quantified and understood. We demonstrate that using thermal skyrmion dynamics, we can characterize the pinning of a sample and we ascertain the spatially resolved energy landscape. To understand the mechanism of the pinning, we probe the strong skyrmion size and shape dependence of the pinning. Magnetic microscopy imaging demonstrates that in contrast to findings in previous investigation…
Generation and Evolution of Spin-, Valley-, and Layer-Polarized Excited Carriers in Inversion-Symmetric WSe2
2016
We report the spin-selective optical excitation of carriers in inversion-symmetric bulk samples of the transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) WSe2. Employing time- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (trARPES) and complementary time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), we observe spin-, valley-, and layer-polarized excited state populations upon excitation with circularly polarized pump pulses, followed by ultrafast ( < 100 fs ) scattering of carriers towards the global minimum of the conduction band. TDDFT reveals the character of the conduction band, into which electrons are initially excited, to be two-dimensional and localized within individual layers, whereas at t…
Study of energetics of 360{\deg} domain walls through annihilation
2018
The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) causes domain walls in perpendicular magnetized systems to adopt a homochiral configuration by winding in the same direction for both Up-Down and Down-Up walls. The topology of these domain walls is then distinct from the uniformly magnetized state. When two domain walls approach each other and are in close proximity they form winding pairs, stabilized by a dipolar repulsion. This can result in the formation of 360 {\deg} stable domain walls, whose stability is directly related to the magnitude of the additional dipolar interaction resulting from the spin structure governed by the DMI. Application of an external magnetic field can overcome the dip…
Quantification of competing magnetic states and switching pathways in curved nanowires by direct dynamic imaging
2020
For viable applications, spintronic devices based e.g. on domain wall motion need to be highly reliable with stable magnetization states and highly reproducible switching pathways transforming one state to another. The existence of multiple stable states and switching pathways in a system is a definitive barrier for device operation, yet rare and stochastic events are difficult to detect and understand. We demonstrate an approach to quantify competing magnetic states and stochastic switching pathways based on time-resolved scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis, applied to the technologically relevant control of vortex domain wall chirality via field and curvature in curved…