Roberto E. Troncoso

Thermally assisted current-driven skyrmion motion

We study the behavior of skyrmions in thin films under the action of stochastic torques arising from thermal fluctuations. We find that the Brownian motion of skyrmions is described by a stochastic Thieles equation and its corresponding Fokker-Planck equation. The resulting Fokker-Planck equation is recognized as the one for a high-friction Brownian particle which has been studied extensively in different physical contexts. It is shown that thermal fluctuations favor the skyrmion motion allowing a finite mobility even in presence of pinning traps. We calculate explicitly the mobility tensor of skyrmions in linear response to an electric current finding that it increases with temperature.

Controlling skyrmion helicity via engineered Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions

Single magnetic skyrmion dynamics in chiral magnets with a spatially inhomogeneous Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) is considered. Based on the relation between DMI coupling and skyrmion helicity, it is argued that the latter must be included as an extra degree of freedom in the dynamics of skyrmions. An effective description of the skyrmion dynamics for an arbitrary inhomogeneous DMI coupling is obtained through the collective coordinates method. The resulting generalized Thiele equation is a dynamical system for the center of mass position and helicity of the skyrmion. It is found that the dissipative tensor and hence the Hall angle become helicity dependent. The skyrmion position and helicity dynamics are fully characterized by our model in two particular examples of engineered DMI coupling: half-planes with opposite-sign DMI and linearly varying DMI. In light of the experiment of Shibata et al (2013 Nat. Nanotechnol. 8 723) on the magnitude and sign of the DMI, our results constitute the first step toward a more complete understanding of the skyrmion helicity as a new degree of freedom that could be harnessed in future high-density magnetic storage and logic devices.

Antiferromagnetic Magnonic Crystals

We describe the features of magnonic crystals based upon antiferromagnetic elements. Our main results are that with a periodic modulation of either magnetic fields or system characteristics, such as the anisotropy, it is possible to tailor the spin wave spectra of antiferromagnetic systems into a band-like organization that displays a segregation of allowed and forbidden bands. The main features of the band structure, such as bandwidths and bandgaps, can be readily manipulated. Our results provide a natural link between two steadily growing fields of spintronics: antiferromagnetic spintronics and magnonics.

Brownian motion of massive skyrmions in magnetic thin films

We report on the thermal effects on the motion of current-driven massive magnetic skyrmions. The reduced equation for the motion of skyrmion has the form of a stochastic generalized Thiele’s equation. We propose an ansatz for the magnetization texture of a non-rigid single skyrmion that depends linearly with the velocity. By utilizing this ansatz it is found that the mass of skyrmion is closely related to intrinsic skyrmion parameters, such as Gilbert damping, skyrmion-charge and dissipative force. We have found an exact expression for the average drift velocity as well as the mean-square velocity of the skyrmion. The longitudinal and transverse mobility of skyrmions for small spin-velocity of electrons is also determined and found to be independent of the skyrmion mass.

Dynamical quenching of tunneling in molecular magnets

Abstract It is shown that a single molecular magnet placed in a rapidly oscillating magnetic field displays the phenomenon of quenching of tunneling processes. The results open a way to manipulate the quantum states of molecular magnets by means of radiation in the terahertz range. Our analysis separates the time evolution into slow and fast components thereby obtaining an effective theory for the slow dynamics. This effective theory presents quenching of the tunnel effect, in particular, stands out its difference with the so-called coherent destruction of tunneling. We support our prediction with numerical evidence based on an exact solution of Schrodingers equation.