Premium
Chiral Spin Textures in Amorphous Iron–Germanium Thick Films
Author(s) -
Streubel Robert,
Bouma D. Simca,
Bruni Frank,
Chen Xiaoqian,
Ercius Peter,
Ciston Jim,
N'Diaye Alpha T.,
Roy Sujoy,
Kevan Steve D.,
Fischer Peter,
Hellman Frances
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.202004830
Subject(s) - skyrmion , condensed matter physics , point reflection , materials science , chirality (physics) , spins , isotropy , anisotropy , symmetry breaking , amorphous solid , topology (electrical circuits) , physics , spontaneous symmetry breaking , quantum mechanics , crystallography , explicit symmetry breaking , chemistry , mathematics , combinatorics
Topological solitary fields, such as magnetic and polar skyrmions, are envisioned to revolutionize microelectronics. These configurations have been stabilized in solid‐state materials with a global inversion symmetry breaking, which translates in magnetic materials into a vector spin exchange known as the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI), as well as spin chirality selection and isotropic solitons. This work reports experimental evidence of 3D chiral spin textures, such as helical spins and skyrmions with different chirality and topological charge, stabilized in amorphous Fe–Ge thick films. These results demonstrate that structurally and chemically disordered materials with a random DMI can resemble inversion symmetry broken systems with similar magnetic properties, moments, and states. Disordered systems are distinguished from systems with global inversion symmetry breaking by their degenerate spin chirality that allows for forming isotropic and anisotropic topological spin textures at remanence, while offering greater flexibility in materials synthesis, voltage, and strain manipulation.