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arXiv · 1804.09955

Large voltage tuning of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction: a route towards dynamic control of skyrmion chirality

Titiksha Srivastava·Marine Schott·Roméo Juge·Viola Křižáková·Mohamed Belmeguenai·Yves Soussigné·Anne Bernand-Mantel·Laurent Ranno·Stefania Pizzini·Salim-Mourad Chérif·Andrey Stashkevich·Stéphane Auffret·Olivier Boulle·Gilles Gaudin·Mair Chshiev·Claire Baraduc·Hélène Béa
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Abstract

Electric control of magnetism is a prerequisite for efficient and low power spintronic devices. More specifically, in heavy metal/ ferromagnet/ insulator heterostructures, voltage gating has been shown to locally and dynamically tune magnetic properties like interface anisotropy and saturation magnetization. However, its effect on interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction (DMI), which is crucial for the stability of magnetic skyrmions, has been challenging to achieve and has not been reported yet for ultrathin films. Here, we demonstrate 130% variation of DMI with electric field in Ta/FeCoB/TaOx trilayers through Brillouin Light Spectroscopy (BLS). Using polar- Magneto-Optical-Kerr-Effect microscopy, we further show a monotonic variation of DMI and skyrmionic bubble size with electric field, with an unprecedented efficiency. We anticipate through our observations that a sign reversal of DMI with electric field is possible, leading to a chirality switch. This dynamic manipulation of DMI establishes an additional degree of control to engineer programmable skyrmion based memory or logic devices.

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Titiksha Srivastava, Marine Schott, Roméo Juge, Viola Křižáková, Mohamed Belmeguenai, Yves Soussigné, Anne Bernand-Mantel, Laurent Ranno, Stefania Pizzini, Salim-Mourad Chérif, Andrey Stashkevich, Stéphane Auffret, Olivier Boulle, Gilles Gaudin, Mair Chshiev, Claire Baraduc, Hélène Béa. 2018-04-26. Large voltage tuning of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction: a route towards dynamic control of skyrmion chirality. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01502

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