Reducing crystal symmetry to generate out-of-plane Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction
The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya antisymmetric exchange interaction (DMI) stabilises topological spin textures with promising future spintronics applications. According to crystal symmetry, the DMI can be categorized as four different types that favour different chiral textures. Unlike the other three extensively-investigated types, out-of-plane DMI, as the last type that favours in-plane chirality, remained missing so far. Here we apply point-group-dependent DMI matrix analysis to show that out-of-plane DMI exists under reduced crystal symmetry. Through strain and structure engineering, we show how C<sub>s</sub> symmetry is realized in ultrathin magnets and observe the out-of-plane DMI stabilised in-plane chirality using spin-polarized electron microscopy. Our results show that extremely low out-of-plane DMI strengths at µeV/atom are sufficient to stabilise topological spin textures, including merons and bimerons. We also demonstrate field-induced reversible control of the in-plane chirality and merons. Our findings open up untapped paths on topological magnetic textures and their potential applications.
Authors
- Colin Ophus (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2348-8558)
- Kai Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9413-6782)
- Yizheng Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9289-1271)
- S. Parkin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4702-6139)
- Heng Niu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5321-1387)
- B. F. Miao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3089-0695)
- Hee Young Kwon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8158-4110)
- Zhiyuan Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5603-968X)
- Andreas K. Schmid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0035-3095)
- Tianping Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0804-019X)
- C. Won (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5987-7411)
- Haifeng Ding (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7524-0779)
- Liang Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7825-9256)
- Gong Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5102-7487)
Institutions
- Anhui University (CN)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Georgetown University (US)
- Fudan University (CN)
- Kyung Hee University (KR)
- Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics (DE)
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics
- Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- Nanjing University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-11-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54521-6
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- Magnetic properties of thin films
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.70
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Research Foundation
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Research Foundation of Korea
- Office of Science
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Division of Materials Research
- Basic Energy Sciences