A transmission electron microscope study of Neel skyrmion magnetic textures in multilayer thin film systems with large interfacial chiral interaction.

ABSTRACT: Skyrmions in ultrathin ferromagnetic metal (FM)/heavy metal (HM) multilayer systems produced by conventional sputtering methods have recently generated huge interest due to their applications in the field of spintronics. The sandwich structure with two correctly-chosen heavy metal layers provides an additive interfacial exchange interaction which promotes domain wall or skyrmion spin textures that are Néel in character and with a fixed chirality. Lorentz transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a high resolution method ideally suited to quantitatively image such chiral magnetic configurations. When allied with physical and chemical TEM analysis of both planar and cross-sectional samples, key length scales such as grain size and the chiral variation of the magnetisation variation have been

SUBMITTER: McVitie S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5890272 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature