Abstract
In this paper, we show that magnetic skyrmion nucleation can be controlled using Ga+ ion irradiation, which manipulates the magnetic interface effects (in particular, the magnetic anisotropy and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction) that govern the stability and energy cost of skyrmions in thin-film systems. We systematically and quantitatively investigate what effect these changes have on the nucleation of magnetic skyrmions. Our results indicate that the energy cost of skyrmion nucleation can be reduced up to 26% in the studied dose range and that it scales approximately linearly with the square root of the domain wall energy density. Moreover, the total number of nucleated skyrmions in irradiated devices after nucleation was found to depend linearly on the ion dose and could be doubled compared to nonirradiated devices. These results show that ion irradiation cannot only be used to enable local nucleation of skyrmions but also allows for fine control of the threshold and efficiency of the nucleation process.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 094429 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Physical Review B |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work is part of the Gravitation programme Research Centre for Integrated Nanophotonics, which is financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). M.J.M. and J.L. acknowledge support as part of the research program of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM), which is a part of NWO. This work was supported by the Eindhoven Hendrik Casimir Institute.