Wataru Koshibae

Memory functions of magnetic skyrmions

Magnetic skyrmion, a swirling spin texture, in chiral magnets is characterized by (i) nano-scale size (

Interface-driven topological Hall effect in SrRuO3-SrIrO3 bilayer

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Magneto-tunable photocurrent in manganite-based heterojunctions

1nm -- 100nm), (ii) topological stability, and (iii) gyro-dynamics. These features are shown to be advantageous for (a) high-density data-storage, (b) nonvolatile memory, and (c) ultra-low current and energy cost manipulation, respectively. By the numerical simulations of Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, the elementary functions of skyrmions are demonstrated aiming at the design principles of skyrmionic memory devices.

Current-induced viscoelastic topological unwinding of metastable skyrmion strings

Electronic transport measurements reveal the formation of swirling spin textures, skyrmions, at high-quality oxide interface. Electron transport coupled with magnetism has attracted attention over the years. Among them, recently discovered is topological Hall effect (THE), originating from scalar spin chirality, that is, the solid angle subtended by the spins. THE is found to be a promising tool for probing the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction and consequent magnetic skyrmions. This interaction arises from broken inversion symmetry and hence can be artificially introduced at interface; this concept is lately verified in metal multilayers. However, there are few attempts to investigate such DM interaction at interface through electron transport. We clarified how the transport properties couple with interface DM interaction by fabricating the epitaxial oxide interface. We observed THE in epitaxial bilayers consisting of ferromagnetic SrRuO3 and paramagnetic SrIrO3 over a wide region of both temperature and magnetic field. The magnitude of THE rapidly decreases with the thickness of SrRuO3, suggesting that the interface DM interaction plays a significant role. Such interaction is expected to realize a 10-nm-sized Néel-type magnetic skyrmion. The present results established that the high-quality oxide interface enables us to tune the effective DM interaction; this can be a step toward future topological electronics.

Berry curvature and dynamics of a magnetic bubble

Correlated electron oxide heterojunctions and their photovoltaic effect have attracted increasing attention from the viewpoints of both possible application to novel devices and basic science. In such junctions, correlated electron physics has to be taken into account in addition to conventional semiconductor modelling to explain distinctively emerging features. However, extracting novel functionalities has not been easy because it is not possible to predict their interfacial properties solely from their bulk characteristics. Here we describe a magneto-tunable photocurrent in a pn junction based on a correlated electron oxide La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 combined with a semiconducting SrTiO3 substrate. On applying an epitaxial strain, the photocurrent is enhanced threefold, which is increased 30% further by a magnetic field. Such a magneto-tunable effect is possible for only a narrow window of the correlated gap, which is itself adjusted by bandwidth and temperature. These results provide a guideline for utilization of correlated phenomena into the novel electronic devices.

Theory of current-driven skyrmions in disordered magnets

In the MnSi bulk chiral magnet, magnetic skyrmion strings of 17u2009nm in diameter appear in the form of a lattice, penetrating the sample thickness, 10–1000u2009μm. Although such a bundle of skyrmion strings may exhibit complex soft-matter-like dynamics when starting to move under the influence of a random pinning potential, the details remain highly elusive. Here, we show that a metastable skyrmion-string lattice is subject to topological unwinding under the application of pulsed currents of 3–5u2009×u2009106u2009Au2009m–2 rather than being transported, as evidenced by measurements of the topological Hall effect. The critical current density above which the topological unwinding occurs is larger for a shorter pulse width, reminiscent of the viscoelastic characteristics accompanying the pinning-creep transition observed in domain-wall motion. Numerical simulations reveal that current-induced depinning of already segmented skyrmion strings initiates the topological unwinding. Thus, the skyrmion-string length is an element to consider when studying current-induced motion.Understanding the dynamics of the skyrmion string lattice is the prerequisite for its potential application as next-generation information carriers. Here, the authors explore the topological unwinding of skyrmion string lattice under the application of current pulses.

Temperature Dependence of Thermopower in Strongly Correlated Multiorbital Systems

Magnetic bubbles have been the subject of intensive studies aiming to investigate their applications to memory devices. A bubble can be regarded as the closed domain wall and is characterized by the winding number of the in-plane components or the skyrmion number N sk , which are related to the number of Bloch lines (BLs). For the magnetic bubbles without BLs, the Thiele equation assuming no internal distortion describes the center-of-mass motion of the bubbles very well. For the magnetic bubbles with BLs, on the other hand, their dynamics is affected seriously by that of BLs along the domain wall. Here we show theoretically, that the distribution of the Berry curvature b z , i.e., the solid angle formed by the magnetization vectors, in the bubble plays the key role in the dynamics of a bubble with in a dipolar magnet. In this case, the integral of b z over the space is zero, while the nonuniform distribution of b z and associated Magnus force induce several nontrivial coupled dynamics of the internal deformation and center-of-mass motion as explicitly demonstrated by numerical simulations of Landau–Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. These findings give an alternative view and will pave a new route to design the bubble dynamics.

Possible method to observe the breathing mode of a magnetic domain wall in the Josephson junction

An emergent topological particle in magnets, skyrmion, has several unique features distinct from the other magnetic textures such as domain wall, helical structure, and vortex. It is characterized by a topological integer called skyrmion number Nsk, which counts how many times the directions of the magnetic moments wrap the unit sphere. This Nsk gives the chiral nature of the skyrmion dynamics, and leads to the extremely small critical current density jc for the current-driven motion in terms of spin transfer torque effect. The finite jc indicates the pinning effect due to the disorder such as impurities and defects, and the behaviors of skyrmions under disorder have not been explored well theoretically although it is always relevant in real systems. Here we reveal by a numerical simulation of Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation that there are four different skyrmion phases with the strong disorder, i.e., (A) pinned state, (B) depinned state, (C) skyrmion multiplication/annihilation, and (D) segregation of skyrmions, as the current density increases, while only two phases (A) and (B) appear in the weak disorder case. The microscopic mechanisms of the new phases (C) and (D) are analyzed theoretically. These results offer a coherent understanding of the skyrmion dynamics under current with disorder.

Thermally activated helicity reversals of skyrmions

Temperature dependence of thermopower in the multiorbital Hubbard model is studied by using the dynamical mean-field theory with the non-crossing approximation impurity solver. It is found that the Coulomb interaction, the Hund coupling, and the crystal filed splitting bring about nonmonotonic temperature dependence of the hermopower, including its sign reversal. The implication of our theoretical results to some materials is discussed.

Real-time quantum dynamics of interacting electrons: self-organized nanoscale structure in a spin-electron coupled system.

A magnetic domain wall (DW) behaves as a massive particle with elasticity. Sliding and oscillation of the DW have been observed experimentally, whereas vibration of a width in the DW, x81breathing modex81, has not been measured so far. We theoretically propose how to observe the breathing mode by the Josephson junction having a ferromagnetic layer between superconducting electrodes. The current-voltage (I-V) curve is calculated by an equivalent circuit of the resistively shunted junction model. The breathing mode is identified by stepwise structures in the I-V curve, which appear at the voltages V = n (ħ/2e)ω with the fundamental constant ħ/e, integer number n and the frequency of the breathing mode ω.