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The role of temperature and drive current in skyrmion dynamics

Nature Electronics volume 3, pages 30–36 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically stabilized nanoscale spin structures that could be of use in the development of future spintronic devices. When a skyrmion is driven by an electric current it propagates at an angle relative to the flow of current—known as the skyrmion Hall angle (SkHA)—that is a function of the drive current. This drive dependence, as well as thermal effects due to Joule heating, could be used to tailor skyrmion trajectories, but are not well understood. Here we report a study of skyrmion dynamics as a function of temperature and drive amplitude. We find that the skyrmion velocity depends strongly on temperature, while the SkHA does not and instead evolves differently in the low- and high-drive regimes. In particular, the maximum skyrmion velocity in ferromagnetic devices is limited by a mechanism based on skyrmion surface tension and deformation (where the skyrmion transitions into a stripe). Our mechanism provides a complete description of the SkHA in ferromagnetic multilayers across the full range of drive strengths, illustrating that skyrmion trajectories can be engineered for device applications.

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Fig. 1: Measurement principle and typical observed skyrmion contrast.
Fig. 2: Skyrmion velocity as a function of current density.
Fig. 3: SkHA as a function of skyrmion velocity.
Fig. 4: Simulations of SkHA versus skyrmion velocity for temperature-dependent material parameters with thermal fluctuations.
Fig. 5: Different types of skyrmion deformation.
Fig. 6: Influence of DL- and FL-SOT on the SkHA.

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The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Reichhardt and C. J. O. Reichhardt for a helpful discussion about the effects proposed in their recent paper52. K.L., D.R., N.Kerber, M.K. and R.M.R. gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Graduate School of Excellence Materials Science in Mainz (MAINZ, GSC266). Work at MIT was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES) under award DE-SC0012371 K.E.-S. acknowledges funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) under project EV 196/2-1. Measurements were carried out at the MAXYMUS end station at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. We thank HZB for the allocation of beamtime. M.K. and the groups in Mainz acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—projects 290319996/TRR173, 403502522/SPP 2137 Skyrmionics and 290396061/TRR173. This work was supported by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO-Vlaanderen) through project G098917N and a postdoctoral fellowship (J.L). J.L was also supported during part of this research by the Ghent University Special Research Fund with a BOF postdoctoral fellowship. We gratefully acknowledge the support of NVIDIA Corporation with the donation of the graphics processing units (GPUs) used for this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Kai Litzius, Pedram Bassirian, Davi Rodrigues, Sascha Kromin, Jakub Zazvorka, Kyu-Joon Lee, Nico Kerber, Daniel Heinze, Niklas Keil, Robert M. Reeve, Karin Everschor-Sitte & Mathias Kläui

  2. Graduate School of Excellence Materials Science in Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Kai Litzius, Nico Kerber, Robert M. Reeve, Karin Everschor-Sitte & Mathias Kläui

  3. Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany

    Kai Litzius, Markus Weigand & Gisela Schütz

  4. Department of Solid State Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Jonathan Leliaert, Jeroen Mulkers & Bartel Van Waeyenberge

  5. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Ivan Lemesh & Geoffrey S. D. Beach

  6. Institute of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jakub Zazvorka

  7. Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Jeroen Mulkers

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Contributions

K.L. and M.K. proposed the study. M.K., G.S., B.V.W. and G.S.D.B. supervised the respective members of the study. I.L. and K.L. fabricated devices. K.L., P.B., S.K., N.Kerber, D.H., N.Keil and M.W. were part of the beamtime teams. K.L. performed and supervised the beamtime experiments. K.L., P.B. and S.K. analysed the beamtime data. K.-Y.L., J.Z. and K.L. performed the sample characterization. I.L. performed numerical calculations on the three-dimensional magnetization in the stack. J.L. and J.M. performed MuMax3 simulations. D.R. and K.E.-S. provided the surface tension model. All authors participated in the discussion and interpreted results. K.L. drafted the manuscript with the help of M.K. and R.M.R. and assistance from G.S.D.B. All authors commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Geoffrey S. D. Beach or Mathias Kläui.

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Supplementary Notes 1–7, including Supplementary Figs. 1–15.

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Litzius, K., Leliaert, J., Bassirian, P. et al. The role of temperature and drive current in skyrmion dynamics. Nat Electron 3, 30–36 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-019-0359-2

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