Sub-nanoscale atom-by-atom crafting of skyrmion-defect interaction profiles.

ABSTRACT: Magnetic skyrmions are prime candidates as information carriers for spintronic devices due to their topological nature and nanometric size. However, unavoidable inhomogeneities inherent to any material leads to pinning or repulsion of skyrmions that, in analogy to biology concepts, define the phenotype of the skyrmion-defect interaction, generating complexity in their motion and challenging their application as future bits of information. Here, we demonstrate that atom-by-atom manufacturing of multi-atomic defects, being antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic, permits the breeding of their energy profiles, for which we build schematically a Punnet-square. As established from first-principles for skyrmions generated in PdFe bilayer on Ir(111) surface, the resulting interaction phenotype is rich

SUBMITTER: Arjana IG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7474088 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature