Dramatic influence of curvature of nanowire on chiral domain wall velocity

The use of current pulses to move domain walls along nanowires is one of the most exciting developments in spintronics over the past decade. We show that changing the sign of the curvature of a nanowire changes the speed of chiral Néel domain walls in perpendicularly magnetized nanowires by up to a factor of 10. The domain walls have an increased or decreased velocity in wires of a given curvature, independent of the domain wall chirality and the sign of the current-induced spin-orbit torques. Thus, adjacent domain walls move at different speeds. For steady motion of domain walls along the curved nanowire, the torque must increase linearly with the radius, which thereby results in a width-dependent tilting of the domain wall. We show that by using synthetic antiferromagnetic nanowires, the influence of the curvature on the domain wall’s velocity is eliminated, and all domain walls move together, emphasizing the use of such structures for spintronic applications.