We present an analytical theory to describe three-dimensional magnetic textures in perpendicularly magnetized magnetic multilayers that arise in the presence of magnetostatic interactions and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). We demonstrate that domain walls in multilayers develop a complex twisted structure, which persists even for films with strong DMI. The origin of this twist is surface-volume stray field interactions that manifest as a depth-dependent effective field whose form mimics the DMI effective field. We find that the wall twist has a minor impact on the equilibrium skyrmion or domain size, but can significantly affect current-driven dynamics. Our conclusions are based on the derived analytical expressions for the magnetostatic energy and confirmed by micromagnetic simulations.
@article{arxiv.1809.01247,
title = {Twisted domain walls and skyrmions in perpendicularly magnetized multilayers},
author = {Ivan Lemesh and Geoffrey S. D. Beach},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.01247},
year = {2018}
}