arXiv subjects

Yan Zhou

Publications and source records attributed to Yan Zhou.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Skyrmion Tubes as Magnonic Waveguides

Various latest experiments have proven the theoretical prediction that domain walls in planar magnetic structures can channel spin waves as outstanding magnonic waveguides, establishing a superb platform for building magnonic devices. Recently, three-dimensional nanomagnetism has been boosted up and become a significant branch of magnetism, because three-dimensional magnetic structures expose a lot of emerging physics hidden behind planar ones and will inevitably provide broader room for device engineering. Skyrmions and antiSkyrmions, as natural three-dimensional magnetic configurations, are not considered yet in the context of spin-wave channeling and steering. Here, we show that skyrmion tubes can act as nonplanar magnonic waveguides if excited suitably. An isolated skyrmion tube in a magnetic nanoprism induces spatially separate internal and edge channels of spin waves; the internal channel has a narrower energy gap, compared to the edge channel, and accordingly can transmit signals at lower frequencies. Additionally, we verify that those spin-wave beams along magnetic nanoprism are restricted to the regions of potential wells. Transmission of spin-wave signals in such waveguides results from the coherent propagation of locally driven eigenmodes of skyrmions, i.e., the breathing and rotational modes. Finally, we find that spin waves along the internal channels are less susceptible to magnetic field than those along the edge channels. Our work will open a new arena for spin-wave manipulation and help bridge skyrmionics and magnonics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Electric field-induced creation and directional motion of domain walls and skyrmion bubbles

Magnetization dynamics driven by an electric field could provide long-term benefits to information technologies because of its ultralow power consumption. Meanwhile, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in interfacially asymmetric multilayers consisting of ferromagnetic and heavy-metal layers can stabilize topological spin textures, such as chiral domain walls, skyrmions, and skyrmion bubbles. These topological spin textures can be controlled by an electric field, and hold promise for building advanced spintronic devices. Here, we present an experimental and numerical study on the electric field-induced creation and directional motion of topological spin textures in magnetic multilayer films and racetracks with thickness gradient and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction at room temperature. We find that the electric field-induced directional motion of chiral domain wall is accompanied with the creation of skyrmion bubbles at certain conditions. We also demonstrate that the electric field variation can induce motion of skyrmion bubbles. Our findings may provide opportunities for developing skyrmion-based devices with ultralow power consumption.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Spin torque nano-oscillators based on antiferromagnetic skyrmions

Skyrmion-based spin torque nano-oscillators are potential next-generation microwave signal generators. However, ferromagnetic skyrmion-based spin torque nano-oscillators cannot reach high oscillation frequencies. In this work, we propose to use the circular motion of an antiferromagnetic skyrmion to create the oscillation signal in order to overcome this obstacle. Micromagnetic simulations demonstrate that the antiferromagnetic skyrmion-based spin torque nano-oscillators can produce high frequencies (tens of GHz). Furthermore, the speed of the circular motion for an antiferromagnetic skyrmion in a nanodisk is analytically derived, which agrees well with the results of numerical simulations. Our findings are useful for the understanding of the inertial dynamics of an antiferromagnetic skyrmion and the development of future skyrmion-based spin torque nano-oscillators.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Dynamics of the antiferromagnetic skyrmion induced by a magnetic anisotropy gradient

The dynamics of antiferromagnets is a current hot topic in condensed matter physics and spintronics. However, the dynamics of insulating antiferromagnets cannot be excited by an electric current, which is a method usually used to manipulate ferromagnetic metals. Here, we propose to use the voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy gradient as an excitation source to manipulate insulating antiferromagnetic textures. We analytically and numerically study the dynamics of an antiferromagnetic skyrmion driven by a magnetic anisotropy gradient. Our analytical calculations demonstrate that such a magnetic anisotropy gradient can effectively drive an antiferromagnetic skyrmion towards the area of lower magnetic anisotropy. The micromagnetic simulations are in good agreement with our analytical solution. Furthermore, the magnetic anisotropy gradient induced velocity of an antiferromagnetic skyrmion is compared with that of a ferromagnetic skyrmion. Our results are useful for the understanding of antiferromagnetic skyrmion dynamics and may open a new way for the design of antiferromagnetic spintronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

A statistical normalization method and differential expression analysis for RNA-seq data between different species

Background: High-throughput techniques bring novel tools but also statistical challenges to genomic research. Identifying genes with differential expression between different species is an effective way to discover evolutionarily conserved transcriptional responses. To remove systematic variation between different species for a fair comparison, the normalization procedure serves as a crucial pre-processing step that adjusts for the varying sample sequencing depths and other confounding technical effects. Results: In this paper, we propose a scale based normalization (SCBN) method by taking into account the available knowledge of conserved orthologous genes and hypothesis testing framework. Considering the different gene lengths and unmapped genes between different species, we formulate the problem from the perspective of hypothesis testing and search for the optimal scaling factor that minimizes the deviation between the empirical and nominal type I errors. Conclusions: Simulation studies show that the proposed method performs significantly better than the existing competitor in a wide range of settings. An RNA-seq dataset of different species is also analyzed and it coincides with the conclusion that the proposed method outperforms the existing method. For practical applications, we have also developed an R package named "SCBN" and the software is available at http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/devel/bioc/html/SCBN.html.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2018

Breaking Transferability of Adversarial Samples with Randomness

We investigate the role of transferability of adversarial attacks in the observed vulnerabilities of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). We demonstrate that introducing randomness to the DNN models is sufficient to defeat adversarial attacks, given that the adversary does not have an unlimited attack budget. Instead of making one specific DNN model robust to perfect knowledge attacks (a.k.a, white box attacks), creating randomness within an army of DNNs completely eliminates the possibility of perfect knowledge acquisition, resulting in a significantly more robust DNN ensemble against the strongest form of attacks. We also show that when the adversary has an unlimited budget of data perturbation, all defensive techniques would eventually break down as the budget increases. Therefore, it is important to understand the game saddle point where the adversary would not further pursue this endeavor. Furthermore, we explore the relationship between attack severity and decision boundary robustness in the version space. We empirically demonstrate that by simply adding a small Gaussian random noise to the learned weights, a DNN model can increase its resilience to adversarial attacks by as much as 74.2%. More importantly, we show that by randomly activating/revealing a model from a pool of pre-trained DNNs at each query request, we can put a tremendous strain on the adversary's attack strategies. We compare our randomization techniques to the Ensemble Adversarial Training technique and show that our randomization techniques are superior under different attack budget constraints.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2018

Sample Dropout for Audio Scene Classification Using Multi-Scale Dense Connected Convolutional Neural Network

Acoustic scene classification is an intricate problem for a machine. As an emerging field of research, deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) achieve convincing results. In this paper, we explore the use of multi-scale Dense connected convolutional neural network (DenseNet) for the classification task, with the goal to improve the classification performance as multi-scale features can be extracted from the time-frequency representation of the audio signal. On the other hand, most of previous CNN-based audio scene classification approaches aim to improve the classification accuracy, by employing different regularization techniques, such as the dropout of hidden units and data augmentation, to reduce overfitting. It is widely known that outliers in the training set have a high negative influence on the trained model, and culling the outliers may improve the classification performance, while it is often under-explored in previous studies. In this paper, inspired by the silence removal in the speech signal processing, a novel sample dropout approach is proposed, which aims to remove outliers in the training dataset. Using the DCASE 2017 audio scene classification datasets, the experimental results demonstrates the proposed multi-scale DenseNet providing a superior performance than the traditional single-scale DenseNet, while the sample dropout method can further improve the classification robustness of multi-scale DenseNet.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

Deterministic creation and deletion of a single magnetic skyrmion observed by direct time-resolved X-ray microscopy

Spintronic devices based on magnetic skyrmions are a promising candidate for next-generation memory applications due to their nanometre-size, topologically-protected stability and efficient current-driven dynamics. Since the recent discovery of room-temperature magnetic skyrmions, there have been reports of current-driven skyrmion displacement on magnetic tracks and demonstrations of current pulse-driven skyrmion generation. However, the controlled annihilation of a single skyrmion at room temperature has remained elusive. Here we demonstrate the deterministic writing and deleting of single isolated skyrmions at room temperature in ferrimagnetic GdFeCo films with a device-compatible stripline geometry. The process is driven by the application of current pulses, which induce spin-orbit torques, and is directly observed using a time resolved nanoscale X-ray imaging technique. We provide a current-pulse profile for the efficient and deterministic writing and deleting process. Using micromagnetic simulations, we also reveal the microscopic mechanism of the topological fluctuations that occur during this process.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Dynamics of magnetic skyrmion clusters driven by spin-polarized current with a spatially varied polarization

Magnetic skyrmions are promising candidates for future information technology. Here, we present a micromagnetic study of isolated skyrmions and skyrmion clusters in ferromagnetic nanodisks driven by the spin-polarized current with spatially varied polarization. The current-driven skyrmion clusters can be either dynamic steady or static, depending on the spatially varied polarization profile. For the dynamic steady state, the skyrmion cluster moves in a circle in the nanodisk, while for the static state, the skyrmion cluster is static. The frequency of the circular motion of skyrmion is also studied. Furthermore, the dependence of the skyrmion cluster dynamics on the magnetic anisotropy and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction is investigated. Our results may provide a pathway to realize magnetic skyrmion cluster based devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Dynamics of a magnetic skyrmionium driven by spin waves

The magnetic skyrmionium is a skyrmion-like structure but carries a zero net skyrmion number, which can be used as a building block for non-volatile information processing devices. Here, we study the dynamics of a magnetic skyrmionium driven by propagating spin waves. It is found that the skyrmionium can be effectively driven into motion by spin waves showing tiny skyrmion Hall effect, of which the mobility is much better than that of the skyrmion at the same condition. We also show that the skyrmionium mobility depends on the nanotrack width and damping coefficient, and can be controlled by an external out-of-plane magnetic field. Besides, we demonstrate the skyrmionium motion driven by spin waves is inertial. Our results indicate that the skyrmionium is a promising building block for building spin-wave spintronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Voltage-Driven High-Speed Skyrmion Motion in a Skyrmion Shift Device

Magnetic skyrmions are promising information carriers for building future high-density and high-speed spintronic devices. However, to achieve a current-driven high-speed skyrmion motion, the required driving current density is usually very large, which could be energy inefficient and even destroy the device due to Joule heating. Here, we propose a voltage-driven skyrmion motion approach in a skyrmion shift device made of magnetic nanowires. The high-speed skyrmion motion is realized by utilizing the voltage shift, and the average skyrmion velocity reaches up to 259 m/s under 0.45 V applied voltage. In comparison with the widely studied vertical current-driven model, the energy dissipation is three orders of magnitude lower in our voltage-driven model, for the same speed motion of skyrmions. Our approach uncovers valuable opportunities for building skyrmion racetrack memories and logic devices with both ultra-low power consumption and ultra-high processing speed, which are appealing features for future spintronic applications.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2018

Skyrmions in magnetic tunnel junctions

In this work, we demonstrate that skyrmions can be nucleated in the free layer of a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMI) by a spin-polarized current with the assistance of stray fields from the pinned layer. The size, stability and number of created skyrmions can be tuned by either the DMI strength or the stray field distribution. The interaction between the stray field and the DMI effective field is discussed. A device with multi-level tunneling magnetoresistance is proposed, which could pave the ways for skyrmion-MTJ-based multi-bit storage and artificial neural network computation. Our results may facilitate the efficient nucleation and electrical detection of skyrmions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Current-driven dynamics and inhibition of the skyrmion Hall effect of ferrimagnetic skyrmions in GdFeCo films

Magnetic skyrmions are swirling magnetic textures with novel characteristics suitable for future spintronic and topological applications. Recent studies confirmed the room-temperature stabilization of skyrmions in ultrathin ferromagnets. However, such ferromagnetic skyrmions show undesirable topological effect, the skyrmion Hall effect, which leads to their current-driven motion towards device edges, where skyrmions could easily be annihilated by topographic defects. Recent theoretical studies have predicted enhanced current-driven behaviour for antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled skyrmions. Here we present the stabilization of these skyrmions and their current-driven dynamics in ferrimagnetic GdFeCo films. By utilizing element-specific X-ray imaging, we find that the skyrmions in the Gd and FeCo sublayers are antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled. We further confirm that ferrimagnetic skyrmions can move at a velocity of ~50 m s-1 with reduced skyrmion Hall angle, θSkHE ~20°. Our findings open the door to ferrimagnetic and antiferromagnetic skyrmionics while providing key experimental evidences of recent theoretical studies.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Current-induced instability of domain walls in cylindrical nanowires

We study the current-driven domain wall (DW) motion in cylindrical nanowires using micromagnetic simulations by implementing the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation with nonlocal spin-transfer torque in a finite difference micromagnetic package. We find that in the presence of DW Gaussian wave packets (spin waves) will be generated when the charge current is applied to the system suddenly. And this effect is excluded when using the local spin-transfer torque. The existence of spin waves emission indicates that transverse domain walls can not move arbitrarily fast in cylindrical nanowires although they are free from the Walker limit. We establish an upper-velocity limit for the DW motion by analyzing the stability of Gaussian wave packets using the local spin-transfer torque. Micromagnetic simulations show that the stable region obtained by using nonlocal spin-transfer torque is smaller than that by using its local counterpart. This limitation is essential for multiple domain walls since the instability of Gaussian wave packets will break the structure of multiple domain walls.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Skyrmion dynamics in a frustrated ferromagnetic film and current-induced helicity locking-unlocking transition

The helicity-orbital coupling is an intriguing feature of magnetic skyrmions in frustrated magnets. Here, we explore the skyrmion dynamics in a frustrated magnet based on the $J_{1}$-$J_{2}$-$J_{3}$ classical Heisenberg model explicitly by including the dipole-dipole interaction. The skyrmion energy acquires a helicity dependence due to the dipole-dipole interaction, resulting in the current-induced translational motion with a fixed helicity. The lowest energy states are the degenerate Bloch-type states, which can be used for building the binary memory. By increasing the driving current, the helicity locking-unlocking transition occurs, where the translational motion changes to the rotational motion. Furthermore, we demonstrate that two skyrmions can spontaneously form a bound state. The separation of the bound state forced by a driving current is also studied. In addition, we show the annihilation of a pair of skyrmion and antiskyrmion. Our results reveal the distinctive frustrated skyrmions may enable viable applications in topological magnetism.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

A Multi-Index Markov Chain Monte Carlo Method

In this article we consider computing expectations w.r.t.~probability laws associated to a certain class of stochastic systems. In order to achieve such a task, one must not only resort to numerical approximation of the expectation, but also to a biased discretization of the associated probability. We are concerned with the situation for which the discretization is required in multiple dimensions, for instance in space and time. In such contexts, it is known that the multi-index Monte Carlo (MIMC) method can improve upon i.i.d.~sampling from the most accurate approximation of the probability law. Indeed by a non-trivial modification of the multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) method and it can reduce the work to obtain a given level of error, relative to the afore mentioned i.i.d.~sampling and relative even to MLMC. In this article we consider the case when such probability laws are too complex to sampled independently. We develop a modification of the MIMC method which allows one to use standard Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms to replace independent and coupled sampling, in certain contexts. We prove a variance theorem which shows that using our MIMCMC method is preferable, in the sense above, to i.i.d.~sampling from the most accurate approximation, under assumptions. The method is numerically illustrated on a problem associated to a stochastic partial differential equation (SPDE).

stat.CO↗

arXiv2017

A microwave field-driven transistor-like skyrmionic device with the microwave current-assisted skyrmion creation

Magnetic skyrmion is a topologically protected domain-wall structure at nanoscale, which could serve as a basic building block for advanced spintronic devices. Here, we propose a microwave field-driven skyrmionic device with the transistor-like function, where the motion of a skyrmion in a voltage-gated ferromagnetic nanotrack is studied by micromagnetic simulations. It is demonstrated that the microwave field can drive the motion of a skyrmion by exciting propagating spin waves, and the skyrmion motion can be governed by a gate voltage. We also investigate the microwave current-assisted creation of a skyrmion to facilitate the operation of the transistor-like skyrmionic device on the source terminal. It is found that the microwave current with an appropriate frequency can reduce the threshold current density required for the creation of a skyrmion from the ferromagnetic background. The proposed transistor-like skyrmionic device operated with the microwave field and current could be useful for building future skyrmion-based circuits.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Controllable transport of a skyrmion in a ferromagnetic narrow channel with voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy

Magnetic skyrmions have potential applications in next-generation spintronics devices with ultralow energy consumption. In this work, the current-driven skyrmion motion in a narrow ferromagnetic nanotrack with voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) is studied numerically. By utilizing the VCMA effect, the transport of skyrmion can be unidirectional in the nanotrack, leading to a one-way information channel. The trajectory of the skyrmion can also be modulated by periodically located VCMA gates, which protects the skyrmion from destruction by touching the track edge. In addition, the location of the skyrmion can be controlled by adjusting the driving pulse length in the presence of the VCMA effect. Our results provide guidelines for practical realization of the skyrmion-based information channel, diode, and racetrack memory.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗