Evidence of Skyrmion-Tube Mediated Magnetization Reversal in Modulated Nanowires

Magnetic nanowires, conceived as individual building blocks for spintronic devices, constitute a well-suited model to design and study magnetization reversal processes, or to tackle fundamental questions, such as the presence of topologically protected magnetization textures under particular conditi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials 2021-09, Vol.14 (19), p.5671
Main Authors: Berganza, E, Marqués-Marchán, J, Bran, C, Vazquez, M, Asenjo, A, Jaafar, M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anisotropy
Critical field (superconductivity)
Hypothetical particles
Magnetic fields
Magnetic signals
Magnetization reversal
Microscopy
Nanowires
Particle theory
Segments
Trends
Tubes
Vortices
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Summary:Magnetic nanowires, conceived as individual building blocks for spintronic devices, constitute a well-suited model to design and study magnetization reversal processes, or to tackle fundamental questions, such as the presence of topologically protected magnetization textures under particular conditions. Recently, a skyrmion-tube mediated magnetization reversal process was theoretically reported in diameter modulated cylindrical nanowires. In these nanowires, a vortex nucleates at the end of the segments with larger diameter and propagates, resulting in a first switching of the nanowire core magnetization at small fields. In this work, we show experimental evidence of the so-called Bloch skyrmion-tubes, using advanced Magnetic Force Microscopy modes to image the magnetization reversal process of FeCoCu diameter modulated nanowires. By monitoring the magnetic state of the nanowire during applied field sweeping, a detected drop of magnetic signal at a given critical field unveils the presence of a skyrmion-tube, due to mutually compensating stray field components. That evidences the presence of a skyrmion-tube as an intermediate stage during the magnetization reversal, whose presence is related to the geometrical dimensions of the cylindrical segments.
ISSN:1996-1944
1996-1944
DOI:10.3390/ma14195671