Soong-Geun Je

Magnetic bubblecade memory based on chiral domain walls

Unidirectional motion of magnetic domain walls is the key concept underlying next-generation domain-wall-mediated memory and logic devices.

Maximizing domain-wall speed via magnetic anisotropy adjustment in Pt/Co/Pt films

We report an experimental observation that indicates that a direct relation exists between the speed of the magnetic domain-wall (DW) motion and the magnitude of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) in Pt/Co/Pt films. It is found that by changing the thicknesses of the nonmagnetic Pt layers, the PMA magnitude can be varied significantly and the field-driven DW speed can also be modified by a factor of up to 50 under the same magnetic field. Interestingly, the DW speed exhibits a clear scaling behavior with respect to the PMA magnitude. A theory based on the DW creep criticality successfully explains the observed scaling exponent between the DW speed and the PMA magnitude. The presented results offer a method of maximizing the DW speed in DW-mediated nanodevices without altering the thickness of the magnetic Co layer.

Emergence of Huge Negative Spin-Transfer Torque in Atomically Thin Co layers

Current-induced domain wall motion has drawn great attention in recent decades as the key operational principle of emerging magnetic memory devices. As the major driving force of the motion, the spin-orbit torque on chiral domain walls has been proposed and is currently extensively studied. However, we demonstrate here that there exists another driving force, which is larger than the spin-orbit torque in atomically thin Co films. Moreover, the direction of the present force is found to be the opposite of the prediction of the standard spin-transfer torque, resulting in the domain wall motion along the current direction. The symmetry of the force and its peculiar dependence on the domain wall structure suggest that the present force is, most likely, attributed to considerable enhancement of a negative nonadiabatic spin-transfer torque in ultranarrow domain walls. Careful measurements of the giant magnetoresistance manifest a negative spin polarization in the atomically thin Co films which might be responsible for the negative spin-transfer torque.

Long-Range Domain Wall Tension in Pt/Co/Pt Films with Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy

We report an experimental detection of a long-range tension effect on magnetic domain walls in Pt/Co/Pt films. Such a tension effect is observed from circular domains expanding (or shrinking) under a constant applied magnetic field. Interestingly, the domain propagation speed varies with respect to the domain radius. Converting the speed variation to a magnetic field via the creep scaling, it is revealed that there exists an effective field inversely proportional to the radius, in accordance with the domain wall tension and the magnetostatic dipolar interaction. The sizeable tension effect subsists over 20 µm, providing a way to directly determine the wall energy density.

Skyrmion motion driven by oscillating magnetic field

The one-dimensional magnetic skyrmion motion induced by an electric current has attracted much interest because of its application potential in next-generation magnetic memory devices. Recently, the unidirectional motion of large (20 μm in diameter) magnetic bubbles with two-dimensional skyrmion topology, driven by an oscillating magnetic field, has also been demonstrated. For application in high-density memory devices, it is preferable to reduce the size of skyrmion. Here we show by numerical simulation that a skyrmion of a few tens of nanometres can also be driven by high-frequency field oscillations, but with a different direction of motion from the in-plane component of the tilted oscillating field. We found that a high-frequency field for small skyrmions can excite skyrmion resonant modes and that a combination of different modes results in a final skyrmion motion with a helical trajectory. Because this helical motion depends on the frequency of the field, we can control both the speed and the direction of the skyrmion motion, which is a distinguishable characteristic compared with other methods.

Spin-orbit torque-induced switching in ferrimagnetic alloys: Experiments and modeling

We investigate spin-orbit torque (SOT)-induced switching in rare-earth-transition metal ferrimagnetic alloys using W/CoTb bilayers. The switching current is found to vary continuously with the alloy concentration, and no reduction in the switching current is observed at the magnetic compensation point despite a very large SOT efficiency. A model based on coupled Landau-Lifschitz-Gilbert (LLG) equations shows that the switching current density scales with the effective perpendicular anisotropy which does not exhibit strong reduction at the magnetic compensation, explaining the behavior of the switching current density. This model also suggests that conventional SOT effective field measurements do not allow one to conclude whether the spins are transferred to one sublattice or just simply to the net magnetization. The effective spin Hall angle measurement shows an enhancement of the spin Hall angle with the Tb concentration which suggests an additional SOT contribution from the rare earth Tb atoms.

Observation of magnetic domain-wall dynamics transition in Co/Ni multilayered nanowires

We observe a transition of domain-wall (DW) dynamics in ferromagnetic wires made of Co/Ni multilayers by use of transport measurement. As the wire width reduces, DW dynamics exhibits a transition from dendrite growth to pure DW motion. The threshold width is found to be about 300 nm and strongly depends on the relative dragging direction of the magnetic field and the current on DW: parallel (antiparallel) direction results in much smaller (larger) threshold width. It should be considered as a building block for DW-motion-based device applications.

Chirality-induced antisymmetry in magnetic domain wall speed

In chiral magnetic materials, numerous intriguing phenomena such as built in chiral magnetic domain walls (DWs) and skyrmions are generated by the Dzyaloshinskii Moriya interaction (DMI). The DMI also results in asymmetric DW speed under in plane magnetic field, which provides a useful scheme to measure the DMI strengths. However, recent findings of additional asymmetries such as chiral damping have disenabled unambiguous DMI determination and the underlying mechanism of overall asymmetries becomes under debate. By extracting the DMI-induced symmetric contribution, here we experimentally investigated the nature of the additional asymmetry. The results revealed that the additional asymmetry has a truly antisymmetric nature with the typical behavior governed by the DW chirality. In addition, the antisymmetric contribution changes the DW speed more than 100 times, which cannot be solely explained by the chiral damping scenario. By calibrating such antisymmetric contributions, experimental inaccuracies can be largely removed, enabling again the DMI measurement scheme.

Universality of stochasticity in magnetic domain-wall motion

We report an experimental observation on universality of stochasticity in magnetic domain-wall motion along ferromagnetic nanowires. The domain-wall arrival time exhibits stochasticity depending on the nanowire width and strength of external magnetic field. Strikingly, all of the measured stochasticity data collapse onto a single universal curve that is given by a function of the number of de-pinning events. Such stochasticity has been found to be saturated for nanowires thinner than about 200 nm, which is possibly attributed to the dimensionality transition from two to one dimension. These results provide essential information for operating and/or design of domain-wall mediated devices.

Magnetic skyrmions in confined geometries: Effect of the magnetic field and the disorder

Abstract We report on the effect of the lateral confinement and a perpendicular magnetic field on isolated room-temperature magnetic skyrmions in sputtered Pt/Co/MgO nanotracks and nanodots. We show that the skyrmions size can be easily tuned by playing on the lateral dimensions of the nanostructures and by using external magnetic field amplitudes of a few mT, which allow to reach sub-100 nm diameters. Our XMCD-PEEM observations also highlight the important role of the pinning on the skyrmions size and stability under an out-of-plane magnetic field. Micromagnetic simulations reveal that the effect of local pinning can be well accounted for by considering the thin film grain structure with local anisotropy variations and reproduce well the dependence of the skyrmion diameter on the magnetic field and the geometry.