Nano-engineering the evolution of skyrmion crystal in synthetic antiferromagnets
Abstract
The evolution of skyrmion crystal encapsulates skyrmion critical behaviors, such as nucleation, deformation and annihilation. Here, we achieve a tunable evolution of artificial skyrmion crystal in nanostructured synthetic antiferromagnet multilayers, which are comprised of perpendicular magnetic multilayers and nanopatterned arrays of magnetic nanodots. The out-of-plane magnetization hysteresis loops and first-order reversal curves show that the nucleation and annihilation of the artificial skyrmion can be controlled by tuning the diameter of and spacing between the nanodots. Moreover, when the bottom layer thickness increases, the annihilation of skyrmion shifts from evolving into a ferromagnetic spin texture to evolving into an antiferromagnetic spin texture. Most significantly, non-volatile multiple states are realized at zero magnetic field via controlling the proportion of the annihilated skyrmions in the skyrmion crystal. Our results demonstrate the tunability and flexibility of the artificial skyrmion platform, providing a promising route to achieve skyrmion-based multistate devices, such as neuromorphic spintronic devices.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2111.14357,
title = {Nano-engineering the evolution of skyrmion crystal in synthetic antiferromagnets},
author = {Mangyuan Ma and Ke Huang and Yong Li and Sihua Li and Qiyuan Feng and Calvin Ching Ian Ang and Tianli Jin and Yalin Lu and Qingyou Lu and Wen Siang Lew and Fusheng Ma and X. Renshaw Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.14357},
year = {2022}
}