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

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 inte

SUBMITTER: Pollard SD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5353624 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature