Gate-controlled skyrmion and domain wall chirality.

Magnetic skyrmions are localized chiral spin textures, which offer great promise to store and process information at the nanoscale. In the presence of asymmetric exchange interactions, their chirality, which governs their dynamics, is generally considered as an intrinsic parameter set during the sample deposition. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate that a gate voltage can control this key parameter. We probe the chirality of skyrmions and chiral domain walls by observing the direction of their current-induced motion and show that a gate voltage can reverse it. This local and dynamical reversal of the chirality is due to a sign inversion of the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction that we attribute to ionic migration of oxygen under gate voltage. Micromagnetic simulations show that the chirality reversal is a continuous transformation, in which the skyrmion is conserved. This control of chirality with 2-3 V gate voltage can be used for skyrmion-based logic devices, yielding new functionalities.

Kinetics of Ion Migration in the Electric Field-Driven Manipulation of Magnetic Anisotropy of Pt/Co/Oxide Multilayers.

Magneto-ionics is a fast developing research field which opens the perspective of energy efficient magnetic devices, where the magnetization direction is controlled by an electric field which drives the migration of ionic species. In this work, the interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) of Pt/Co/oxide stacks covered by ZrO2 , acting as a ionic conductor, is tuned by a gate voltage at room temperature. A large variation of the PMA is obtained by modifying the oxidation of the cobalt layer through the migration of oxygen ions: the easy magnetization axis can be switched reversibly from in-plane, with under-oxidized Co, to in-plane, with over-oxidized Co, passing through an out-of-plane magnetization state. The switching time between the different magnetic states is limited by the ion drift velocity. This depends exponentially on the gate voltage, and is varied by over five orders of magnitude, from several minutes to a few ms. The variation of the PMA versus time during the application of the gate voltage can be modeled with a parabolic variation of the PMA and an exponential decrease of the Co oxidation rate. The possibility to explain the observed effect with a simple theoretical model opens the possibility to engineer materials with optimized properties.

Route towards efficient magnetization reversal driven by voltage control of magnetic anisotropy.

The voltage controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) becomes a subject of major interest for spintronics due to its promising potential outcome: fast magnetization manipulation in magnetoresistive random access memories with enhanced storage density and very low power consumption. Using a macrospin approach, we carried out a thorough analysis of the role of the VCMA on the magnetization dynamics of nanostructures with out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy. Diagrams of the magnetization switching have been computed depending on the material and experiment parameters (surface anisotropy, Gilbert damping, duration/amplitude of electric and magnetic field pulses) thus allowing predictive sets of parameters for optimum switching experiments. Two characteristic times of the trajectory of the magnetization were analyzed analytically and numerically setting a lower limit for the duration of the pulses. An interesting switching regime has been identified where the precessional reversal of magnetization does not depend on the voltage pulse duration. This represents a promising path for the magnetization control by VCMA with enhanced versatility.

Creation of Magnetic Skyrmion Bubble Lattices by Ultrafast Laser in Ultrathin Films.

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically nontrivial spin textures which hold great promise as stable information carriers in spintronic devices at the nanoscale. One of the major challenges for developing novel skyrmion-based memory and logic devices is fast and controlled creation of magnetic skyrmions at ambient conditions. Here we demonstrate controlled generation of skyrmion bubbles and skyrmion bubble lattices from a ferromagnetic state in sputtered ultrathin magnetic films at room temperature by a single ultrafast (35 fs) laser pulse. The skyrmion bubble density increases with the laser fluence, and it finally becomes saturated, forming disordered hexagonal lattices. Moreover, we present that the skyrmion bubble lattice configuration leads to enhanced topological stability as compared to isolated skyrmions, suggesting its promising use in data storage. Our findings shed light on the optical approach to the skyrmion bubble lattice in commonly accessible materials, paving the road toward the emerging skyrmion-based memory and synaptic devices.

Large-Voltage Tuning of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions: A Route toward Dynamic Control of Skyrmion Chirality.

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 such as 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 a 130% variation of DMI with electric field in Ta/FeCoB/TaO x trilayer 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 an 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.

The Skyrmion Switch: Turning Magnetic Skyrmion Bubbles on and off with an Electric Field.

Nanoscale magnetic skyrmions are considered as potential information carriers for future spintronics memory and logic devices. Such applications will require the control of their local creation and annihilation, which involves so far solutions that are either energy consuming or difficult to integrate. Here we demonstrate the control of skyrmion bubbles nucleation and annihilation using electric field gating, an easily integrable and potentially energetically efficient solution. We present a detailed stability diagram of the skyrmion bubbles in a Pt/Co/oxide trilayer and show that their stability can be controlled via an applied electric field. An analytical bubble model with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction imbedded in the domain wall energy accounts for the observed electrical skyrmion switching effect. This allows us to unveil the origin of the electrical control of skyrmions stability and to show that both magnetic dipolar interaction and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction play an important role in the skyrmion bubble stabilization.