Observation of stable Néel skyrmions in cobalt/palladium multilayers with Lorentz transmission electron microscopy

Shawn D. Pollard, Joseph A. Garlow, Jiawei Yu, Zhen Wang, Yimei Zhu () and Hyunsoo Yang ()
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Shawn D. Pollard: National University of Singapore
Joseph A. Garlow: Stony Brook University
Jiawei Yu: National University of Singapore
Zhen Wang: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Yimei Zhu: Stony Brook University
Hyunsoo Yang: National University of Singapore

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Néel skyrmions are of high interest due to their potential applications in a variety of spintronic devices, currently accessible in ultrathin heavy metal/ferromagnetic bilayers and multilayers with a strong Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction. Here we report on the direct imaging of chiral spin structures including skyrmions in an exchange-coupled cobalt/palladium multilayer at room temperature with Lorentz transmission electron microscopy, a high-resolution technique previously suggested to exhibit no Néel skyrmion contrast. Phase retrieval methods allow us to map the internal spin structure of the skyrmion core, identifying a 25 nm central region of uniform magnetization followed by a larger region characterized by rotation from in- to out-of-plane. The formation and resolution of the internal spin structure of room temperature skyrmions without a stabilizing out-of-plane field in thick magnetic multilayers opens up a new set of tools and materials to study the physics and device applications associated with chiral ordering and skyrmions.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14761

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