Deterministic control of magnetic vortex wall chirality by electric field

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 7613 - 6
• Main Authors: Beardsley, R. P., Bowe, S., Parkes, D. E., Reardon, C., Edmonds, K. W., Gallagher, B. L., Cavill, S. A., Rushforth, A. W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.08.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/766/119/2793; 639/766/119/997; 639/925/927/1062; Chirality; Electric currents; Energy efficiency; Humanities and Social Sciences; Information processing; Information storage; Magnetic fields; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-07944-9

Concepts for information storage and logical processing based on magnetic domain walls have great potential for implementation in future information and communications technologies. To date, the need to apply power hungry magnetic fields or heat dissipating spin polarized currents to manipulate magnetic domain walls has limited the development of such technologies. The possibility of controlling magnetic domain walls using voltages offers an energy efficient route to overcome these limitations. Here we show that a voltage-induced uniaxial strain induces reversible deterministic switching of the chirality of a magnetic vortex wall. We discuss how this functionality will be applicable to schemes for information storage and logical processing, making a significant step towards the practical implementation of magnetic domain walls in energy efficient computing.