Asymmetric domain-wall depinning induced by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction

Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) is currently the focus point of many research efforts in the spintronics community. It is possible that applications and fundamental new physics motivate us to understand, measure, and manipulate this interaction. Using an elegant, alternative approach, we show that by depinning a domain wall from an anisotropy barrier in perpendicular magnetic anisotropy nanowires in the presence of a static in-plane field, the presence of DMI can be detected. This is experimentally demonstrated, and the clear effects are observed even though a sample with small DMI is used. The technique presented could be used to obtain both the sign of the DMI constant and its quantitative value.