Direct imaging of chiral domain walls and N\'eel-type skyrmionium in ferrimagnetic alloys

• Main Authors: Seng, Boris, Schönke, Daniel, Yeste, Javier, Reeve, Robert M, Kerber, Nico, Lacour, Daniel, Bello, Jean-Loïs, Bergeard, Nicolas, Kammerbauer, Fabian, Bhukta, Mona, Ferté, Tom, Boeglin, Christine, Radu, Florin, Abrudan, Radu, Kachel, Torsten, Mangin, Stéphane, Hehn, Michel, Kläui, Mathias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 26.02.2021
• Subjects: Physics - Materials Science
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2102.13502

The evolution of chiral spin structures is studied in ferrimagnet Ta/Ir/Fe/GdFeCo/Pt multilayers as a function of temperature using scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis (SEMPA). The GdFeCo ferrimagnet exhibits pure right-hand N\'eel-type domain wall (DW) spin textures over a large temperature range. This indicates the presence of a negative Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) that can originate from both the top Fe/Pt and the Co/Pt interfaces. From measurements of the DW width, as well as complementary magnetic characterization, the exchange stiffness as a function of temperature is ascertained. The exchange stiffness is surprisingly mostly constant, which is explained by theoretical predictions. Beyond single skyrmions, we find by direct imaging a pure N\'eel-type skyrmionium, which due to the absence of a skyrmion Hall angle is a promising topological spin structure to enable high impact potential applications in the next generation of spintronic devices.