Antiferromagnetic half-skyrmions and bimerons at room temperature

Hariom Jani (), Jheng-Cyuan Lin, Jiahao Chen, Jack Harrison, Francesco Maccherozzi, Jonathon Schad, Saurav Prakash, Chang-Beom Eom, A. Ariando, T. Venkatesan () and Paolo G. Radaelli ()
Additional contact information
Hariom Jani: National University of Singapore
Jheng-Cyuan Lin: University of Oxford
Jiahao Chen: University of Oxford
Jack Harrison: University of Oxford
Francesco Maccherozzi: Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Jonathon Schad: University of Wisconsin–Madison
Saurav Prakash: National University of Singapore
Chang-Beom Eom: University of Wisconsin–Madison
A. Ariando: National University of Singapore
T. Venkatesan: National University of Singapore
Paolo G. Radaelli: University of Oxford

Nature, 2021, vol. 590, issue 7844, 74-79

Abstract: Abstract In the quest for post-CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) technologies, driven by the need for improved efficiency and performance, topologically protected ferromagnetic ‘whirls’ such as skyrmions1–8 and their anti-particles have shown great promise as solitonic information carriers in racetrack memory-in-logic or neuromorphic devices1,9–11. However, the presence of dipolar fields in ferromagnets, which restricts the formation of ultrasmall topological textures3,6,8,9,12, and the deleterious skyrmion Hall effect, when skyrmions are driven by spin torques9,10,12, have thus far inhibited their practical implementation. Antiferromagnetic analogues, which are predicted to demonstrate relativistic dynamics, fast deflection-free motion and size scaling, have recently become the subject of intense focus9,13–19, but they have yet to be experimentally demonstrated in natural antiferromagnetic systems. Here we realize a family of topological antiferromagnetic spin textures in α-Fe2O3—an Earth-abundant oxide insulator—capped with a platinum overlayer. By exploiting a first-order analogue of the Kibble–Zurek mechanism20,21, we stabilize exotic merons and antimerons (half-skyrmions)8 and their pairs (bimerons)16,22, which can be erased by magnetic fields and regenerated by temperature cycling. These structures have characteristic sizes of the order of 100 nanometres and can be chemically controlled via precise tuning of the exchange and anisotropy, with pathways through which further scaling may be achieved. Driven by current-based spin torques from the heavy-metal overlayer, some of these antiferromagnetic textures could emerge as prime candidates for low-energy antiferromagnetic spintronics at room temperature1,9–11,23.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03219-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:590:y:2021:i:7844:d:10.1038_s41586-021-03219-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03219-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().