Jonathan Chico

Topological excitations in a kagome magnet

Chirality--that is, left or right handedness--is present in many scientific areas, and particularly in condensed matter physics. Inversion symmetry breaking relates chirality with skyrmions, which are protected field configurations with particle-like and topological properties. Here we show that a kagome magnet, with Heisenberg and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, causes non-trivial topological and chiral magnetic properties. We also find that under special circumstances, skyrmions emerge as excitations, having stability even at room temperature. Chiral magnonic edge states of a kagome magnet offer, in addition, a promising way to create, control and manipulate skyrmions. This has potential for applications in spintronics, that is, for information storage or as logic devices. Collisions between these particle-like excitations are found to be elastic at very low temperature in the skyrmion-skyrmion channel, albeit without mass-conservation. Skyrmion-antiskyrmion collisions are found to be more complex, where annihilation and creation of these objects have a distinct non-local nature.

Local dynamics of topological magnetic defects in the itinerant helimagnet FeGe

Chiral magnetic interactions induce complex spin textures including helical and conical spin spirals, as well as particle-like objects such as magnetic skyrmions and merons. These spin textures are the basis for innovative device paradigms and give rise to exotic topological phenomena, thus being of interest for both applied and fundamental sciences. Present key questions address the dynamics of the spin system and emergent topological defects. Here we analyse the micromagnetic dynamics in the helimagnetic phase of FeGe. By combining magnetic force microscopy, single-spin magnetometry and Landau–Lifschitz–Gilbert simulations we show that the nanoscale dynamics are governed by the depinning and subsequent motion of magnetic edge dislocations. The motion of these topologically stable objects triggers perturbations that can propagate over mesoscopic length scales. The observation of stochastic instabilities in the micromagnetic structure provides insight to the spatio-temporal dynamics of itinerant helimagnets and topological defects, and discloses open challenges regarding their technological usage.

Electronic structure and magnetic properties of L1(0) binary alloys

A good permanent magnet should possess a large saturation magnetisation (Ms), large mag- netocrystalline anisotropy energy (MAE) and a high Curie temperature (TC). A difficult but important challenge to overcome for a sustainable permanent magnet industry is to find novel magnetic materials, exhibiting a large MAE, without the use of scarcely available elements such as rare-earth metals. The purpose of this thesis is to apply computational methods, including density functional theory and Monte Carlo simulations, to assess the three above mentioned permanent magnet properties and in particular to discover new replacement materials with large MAE without the use of critical materials such as rare-earths.One of the key results is the theoretical prediction of a tetragonal phase of Fe1−xCox-C with large Ms and significantly increased MAE which is later also experimentally confirmed. Furthermore, other potential materials are surveyed and in particular the properties of a number of binary alloys in the L10 structure, FeNi, CoNi, MnAl and MnGa, are thoroughly investigated and shown to posses the desired properties under certain conditions.

Tunable damping, saturation magnetization, and exchange stiffness of half-Heusler NiMnSb thin films

The half-metallic half-Heusler alloy NiMnSb is a promising candidate for applications in spintronic devices due to its low magnetic damping and its rich anisotropies. Here we use ferromagnetic reso ...

A new look on the two-dimensional Ising model: thermal artificial spins

We present a direct experimental investigation of the thermal ordering in an artificial analogue of an asymmetric two dimensional Ising system composed of a rectangular array of nano-fabricated magnetostatically interacting islands. During fabrication and below a critical thickness of the magnetic material the islands are thermally fluctuating and thus the system is able to explore its phase space. Above the critical thickness the islands freeze-in resulting in an arrested thermalized state for the array. Determining the magnetic state of the array we demonstrate a genuine artificial two-dimensional Ising system which can be analyzed in the context of nearest neighbour interactions.

First-principles studies of the Gilbert damping and exchange interactions for half-metallic Heuslers alloys

Heusler alloys have been intensively studied due to the wide variety of properties that they exhibit. One of these properties is of particular interest for technological applications, i.e., the fac ...

Extended spin model in atomistic simulations of alloys

An extended atomistic spin model allowing for studies of the finite-temperature magnetic properties of alloys is proposed. The model is obtained by extending the Heisenberg Hamiltonian via a parame ...

Thermally driven domain-wall motion in Fe on W(110)

It has recently been shown that domain walls (DWs) in ferromagnets can be moved in the presence of thermal gradients. In this work we study the motion of narrow domain walls in low-dimensional systems when subjected to thermal gradients. The system chosen is a monolayer of Fe on W(110) which is known to exhibit a large anisotropy while having a soft exchange, resulting in a very narrow domain wall. The study is performed by means of atomistic spin dynamics simulations coupled to first-principles calculations. By subjecting this system to thermal gradients we observe a temperature-dependent movement of the domain wall. The thermal gradient always makes the domain wall move towards the hotter region of the sample with a velocity proportional to the gradient. Our material specific study is complemented by model simulations to discern the interplay between the thermal gradient, magnetic anisotropy, and the exchange interaction and shows that the larger DW velocities are found for materials with broader domain-wall width. The relatively slow DW motion of the Fe/W(110) system is hence primarily caused by its narrow domain-wall width, which results from its large magnetic anisotropy and soft exchange.

Systematic study of magnetodynamic properties at finite temperatures in doped permalloy from first-principles calculations

By means of first-principles calculations, we have systematically investigated how the magnetodynamic properties Gilbert damping, magnetization, and exchange stiffness are affected when permalloy ( ...

Electronic structure and magnetic properties ofL10binary alloys

A good permanent magnet should possess a large saturation magnetisation (Ms), large mag- netocrystalline anisotropy energy (MAE) and a high Curie temperature (TC). A difficult but important challenge to overcome for a sustainable permanent magnet industry is to find novel magnetic materials, exhibiting a large MAE, without the use of scarcely available elements such as rare-earth metals. The purpose of this thesis is to apply computational methods, including density functional theory and Monte Carlo simulations, to assess the three above mentioned permanent magnet properties and in particular to discover new replacement materials with large MAE without the use of critical materials such as rare-earths.One of the key results is the theoretical prediction of a tetragonal phase of Fe1−xCox-C with large Ms and significantly increased MAE which is later also experimentally confirmed. Furthermore, other potential materials are surveyed and in particular the properties of a number of binary alloys in the L10 structure, FeNi, CoNi, MnAl and MnGa, are thoroughly investigated and shown to posses the desired properties under certain conditions.