Chemisorption-Induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions

 · Invited

Abstract

Chiral spin textures lead to a host of fascinating phenomena due to their topologically protected spin configurations and emergent electromagnetic field, offering great potential for novel concepts in low dissipation magnetic information storage [1-3]. The most widely used mechanism to stabilize magnetic chirality is the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI), originating from broken inversion symmetry. To date, sufficiently large DMI has been found in a limited set of bulk materials with chiral lattice, and in magnetic thin films adjacent to heavy metals or oxides.

Using a magnetic imaging technique, we have previously discovered that chiral spin textures are induced at graphene/ferromagnet interfaces due to a Rashba-type DMI [4]. More recently, we have found that chemisorbed species such as oxygen [5] (which is different from the ionic oxygen in oxides) and hydrogen [6] on the surface of ferromagnetic films can induce significant DMI, despite their low atomic number. We find that the DMI at the oxygen/ferromagnet interface is comparable to that at ferromagnet/transition-metal interfaces. This large DMI has enabled direct tailoring of skyrmions winding number and wall type at room temperature via oxygen chemisorption. We have also demonstrated a sensitive and reversible chirality switching of magnetic domain walls via hydrogen chemisorption/desorption [6]. These results extend the understanding of the DMI induced by the light elements and support chemisorption related design of spin-orbitronics and magneto-ionic devices.

[1] R. Wiesendanger, Nat. Rev. Mater. 1, 16044 (2016).
[2] A. Fert, et al. Nat. Rev. Mater. 2, 17031 (2017).
[3] W. Jiang, et al. Phys. Rep. 704, 1 (2017).
[4] H. Yang, G. Chen, et al. Nat. Mater. 17, 605 (2018).
[5] G. Chen, et al. Sci. Adv. 6, eaba4924 (2020).
[6] G. Chen, et al. under review.

*NSF (DMR-1610060, DMR-1905468, and DMR-2005108), UCOP-MRPI (MRP-17-454963), nCORE-SMART Center (2018-NE-2861) through SRC/NIST, and US DoE (DE-AC02-05CH11231).

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Presenters

  • Gong Chen

    • Georgetown University
    • Physics Department, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

Authors

  • Gong Chen

    • Georgetown University
    • Physics Department, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

  • Arantzazu Mascaraque

    • Universidad Complutense de Madrid

  • Hongying Jia

    • Forschungszentrum Jülich
    • Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA

  • Bernd Zimmermann

    • Forschungszentrum Jülich

  • Maccallum Robertson

    • University of California, Davis

  • Roberto Lo Conte

    • University of Hamburg
    • Department of Physics, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

  • Colin Ophus

    • Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • LBNL
    • National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

  • Andre Luis Fernandes Cauduro

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Markus Hoffmann

    • Forschungszentrum Jülich
    • Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA

  • MIGUEL BARRIO

    • Universidad Complutense de Madrid

  • Haifeng Ding

    • Nanjing University

  • Roland Wiesendanger

    • University of Hamburg
    • Department of Physics, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

  • Enrique G Michel

    • Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

  • Stefan Bluegel

    • Forschungszentrum Jülich
    • Peter Grünberg Institute and Institute for Advance Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA
    • Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
    • Peter Grünberg Institute (PGI-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich
    • Peter Gruenberg Institut, Forschungszentrum Jülich
    • Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA

  • Andreas Schmid

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

  • Kai Liu

    • Georgetown University
    • Physics Department, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA