Control of magnetism at the microscopic level with magnetic fields

ORAL

Abstract

Information storage and manipulation technologies rely on the formation and control of nanoscopic magnetic domains. Key limitations on information density include thermal fluctuations of small magnetic domains and large thermal loads produced by currents necessary to manipulate them. In contrast, magnetic systems displaying topologically nontrivial magnetic structures have been shown to be robust against thermal fluctuations and can be manipulated with small currents. Here we use Lorentz transmission electron microscopy and small-angle neutron scattering measurements to demonstrate control over the domain topology of an anisotropic hexagonal chiral magnet Mn1/3NbS2. Magnetic solitons, twists of magnetization along a single direction, are observed to controllably form either soliton/soliton or soliton/antisoliton pairs which translate and annihilate when exposed to small magnetic fields.

*The experimental material presented here is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under EPSCoR Grant DESC0012432 with additional support from the LouisianaBoard of Regents. A.K. acknowledges support for the Fresnel imaging in LTEM from the EU’s ERC Horizon 2020 program under Grant Agreement 856538 and from DFG project-ID405553726-TRR 270. The SANS measurements at ORNL’s HFIR was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), U.S.Department of Energy (DOE). I.V. acknowledges support from NSF Grant DMR 1410741 for theoretical work and hospitality of the KITP, where part of this research wasperformed under NSF Grant PHY-1748958. We would like to thank Dr. Ron Kelley from ThermoFisher Scientific for providing access and assistance with their PFIB for samplepreparation and TEM imaging. We thank Dr. Dongmei Cao of the Shared Instrument Facilities at Louisiana State University for assistance with sample preparation for the LTEM imaging.

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Publication: Sunil K. Karna, M. Marshall, W. Xie, L. DeBeer-Schmitt, D. P. Young, I. Vekhter, W. A. Shelton, A. Kovacs, M. Charilaou, and J. F. DiTusa "Annihilation and control of chiral domain walls with magnetic fields" Nano Lett. 21, 1205-1212 (2021).

Presenters

  • Sunil K Karna

    • Prairie View A&M University

Authors

  • Sunil K Karna

    • Prairie View A&M University

  • Madalynn Marshall

    • Oak Ridge National Lab
    • Rutgers University

  • Weiwei Xie

    • Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  • Lisa M DeBeer-Schmitt

    • ORNL
    • Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  • David P Young

    • Louisiana State University

  • Ilya Vekhter

    • Louisiana State University

  • William A Shelton

    • Louisiana State University

  • Andras Kovács

    • Forschungszentrum Jülich

  • Michalis Charilaou

    • Univ of Louisiana - Lafayette

  • John F DiTusa

    • Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis