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arXiv · 1402.5410

DMI meter: Measuring the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction inversion in Pt/Co/Ir/Pt multilayers

A. Hrabec·N. A. Porter·A. Wells·M. J. Benitez Romero·G. Burnell·S. McVitie·D. McGrouther·T. A. Moore·C. H. Marrows
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Abstract

We describe a field-driven domain wall creep-based method for the quantification of interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMI) in perpendicularly magnetized thin films. The use of only magnetic fields to drive wall motion removes the possibility of mixing with current-related effects such as spin Hall effect or Rashba field, as well as the complexity arising from lithographic patterning. We demonstrate this method on sputtered Pt/Co/Ir/Pt multilayers with a variable Ir layer thickness. By inserting an ultrathin layer of Ir at the Co/Pt interface we can reverse the sign of the effective DMI acting on the sandwiched Co layer, and therefore continuously change the domain wall (DW) structure from right- to the left-handed N\'{e}el wall. We also show that the DMI shows exquisite sensitivity to the exact details of the atomic structure at the film interfaces by comparison with a symmetric epitaxial Pt/Co/Pt multilayer.

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A. Hrabec, N. A. Porter, A. Wells, M. J. Benitez Romero, G. Burnell, S. McVitie, D. McGrouther, T. A. Moore, C. H. Marrows. 2014-02-21. DMI meter: Measuring the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction inversion in Pt/Co/Ir/Pt multilayers. https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5410

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