Juba Bouaziz

Chirality-driven orbital magnetic moments as a new probe for topological magnetic structures

When electrons are driven through unconventional magnetic structures, such as skyrmions, they experience emergent electromagnetic fields that originate several Hall effects. Independently, ground-state emergent magnetic fields can also lead to orbital magnetism, even without the spin–orbit interaction. The close parallel between the geometric theories of the Hall effects and of the orbital magnetization raises the question: does a skyrmion display topological orbital magnetism? Here we first address the smallest systems with nonvanishing emergent magnetic field, trimers, characterizing the orbital magnetic properties from first-principles. Armed with this understanding, we study the orbital magnetism of skyrmions and demonstrate that the contribution driven by the emergent magnetic field is topological. This means that the topological contribution to the orbital moment does not change under continuous deformations of the magnetic structure. Furthermore, we use it to propose a new experimental protocol for the identification of topological magnetic structures, by soft X-ray spectroscopy.

Chiral magnetism of magnetic adatoms generated by Rashba electrons

We investigate long-range chiral magnetic interactions among adatoms mediated by surface states spin-splitted by spin-orbit coupling. Using the Rashba model, the tensor of exchange interactions is extracted wherein a pseudo-dipolar interaction is found besides the usual isotropic exchange interaction and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. We find that, despite the latter interaction, collinear magnetic states can still be stabilized by the pseudo-dipolar interaction. The inter-adatom distance controls the strength of these terms, which we exploit to design chiral magnetism in Fe nanostructures deposited on Au(111) surface. We demonstrate that these magnetic interactions are related to superpositions of the out-of-plane and in-plane components of the skyrmionic magnetic waves induced by the adatoms in the surrounding electron gas. We show that, even if the inter-atomic distance is large, the size and shape of the nanostructures dramatically impacts on the strength of the magnetic interactions, thereby affecting the magnetic ground state. We also derive an appealing connection between the isotropic exchange interaction and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which relates the latter to the first order change of the former with respect to the spin-orbit coupling. This implies that the chirality defined by the direction of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya vector is driven by the variation of the isotropic exchange interaction due to the spin-orbit interaction.

Microscopic theory of the residual surface resistivity of Rashba electrons

A microscopic expression of the residual electrical resistivity tensor is derived in linear response theory for Rashba electrons scattering at a magnetic impurity with cylindrical or noncylindrical potential. The behavior of the longitudinal and transversal residual resistivity is obtained analytically and computed for an Fe impurity at the Au(111) surface. We studied the evolution of the resistivity tensor elements as a function of the Rashba spin-orbit strength and the magnetization direction of the impurity. We found that the absolute values of longitudinal resistivity reduce with increasing spin-orbit strength of the substrate and that the scattering of the conduction electrons at magnetic impurities with magnetic moments pointing in directions not perpendicular to the surface plane produce a planar Hall effect and an anisotropic magnetoresistance even if the impurity carries no spin-orbit interaction. Functional forms are provided describing the anisotropy of the planar Hall effect and the anisotropic magnetoresistance with respect to the direction of the impurity moment. In the limit of no spin-orbit interaction and a nonmagnetic impurity of cylindrical symmetry, the expression of the residual resistivity of a two-dimensional electron gas has the same simplicity and form as for the three-dimensional electron gas [J. Friedel, J. Nuovo. Cim. 7, 287 (1958)] and can also be expressed in terms of scattering phase shifts.

Spin-resolved inelastic electron scattering by spin waves in noncollinear magnets

Topological non-collinear magnetic phases of matter are at the heart of many proposals for future information nanotechnology, with novel device concepts based on ultra-thin films and nanowires. Their operation requires understanding and control of the underlying dynamics, including excitations such as spin-waves. So far, no experimental technique has attempted to probe large wave-vector spin-waves in non-collinear low-dimensional systems. In this work, we explain how inelastic electron scattering, being suitable for investigations of surfaces and thin films, can detect the collective spin-excitation spectra of non-collinear magnets. To reveal the particularities of spin-waves in such non-collinear samples, we propose the usage of spin-polarized electron-energy-loss spectroscopy augmented with a spin-analyzer. With the spin-analyzer detecting the polarization of the scattered electrons, four spin-dependent scattering channels are defined, which allow to filter and select specific spin-wave modes. We take as examples a topological non-trivial skyrmion lattice, a spin-spiral phase and the conventional ferromagnet. Then we demonstrate that, counter-intuitively and in contrast to the ferromagnetic case, even non spin-flip processes can generate spin-waves in non-collinear substrates. The measured dispersion and lifetime of the excitation modes permit to fingerprint the magnetic nature of the substrate.

Dynamical amplification of magnetoresistances and Hall currents up to the THz regime

Spin-orbit-related effects offer a highly promising route for reading and writing information in magnetic units of future devices. These phenomena rely not only on the static magnetization orientation but also on its dynamics to achieve fast switchings that can reach the THz range. In this work, we consider Co/Pt and Fe/W bilayers to show that accounting for the phase difference between different processes is crucial to the correct description of the dynamical currents. By tuning each system towards its ferromagnetic resonance, we reveal that dynamical spin Hall angles can non-trivially change sign and be boosted by over 500%, reaching giant values. We demonstrate that charge and spin pumping mechanisms can greatly magnify or dwindle the currents flowing through the system, influencing all kinds of magnetoresistive and Hall effects, thus impacting also dc and second harmonic experimental measurements.

Ab initio investigation of impurity-induced in-gap states in Bi

We investigate in-gap states emerging when a single

_2

3d

Te

transition metal impurity is embedded in topological insulators (

_3

{\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Te}}_{3}

and Bi

and