Electric field driven switching of individual magnetic skyrmions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that local electric fields can reversibly switch magnetic skyrmions to ferromagnetic states, enabling energy-efficient control for potential skyrmion-based memory devices.

Contribution

It introduces a method to electrically switch topologically distinct magnetic states, specifically skyrmions and ferromagnetic states, which was previously challenging.

Findings

Electric fields can reversibly switch skyrmions and ferromagnetic states.

The switching is controlled by the electric field direction.

This method enables potential energy-efficient skyrmion memory applications.

Abstract

Controlling magnetism with electric fields is a key challenge to develop future energy-efficient devices, however, the switching between inversion symmetric states, e.g. magnetization up and down as used in current technology, is not straightforward, since the electric field does not break time-reversal symmetry. Here, we demonstrate that local electric fields can be used to reversibly switch between a magnetic skyrmion and the ferromagnetic state. These two states are topologically inequivalent, and we find that the direction of an electric field directly determines the final state. This observation establishes the possibility to combine energy-efficient electric field writing with the recently envisaged skyrmion racetrack-type memories.