Driving Skyrmions in a Composite Bilayer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how electric fields can induce and manipulate magnetic skyrmions in a composite bilayer, revealing electric-magnetic coupling effects relevant for spintronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a model for electric-field-driven skyrmions in a chiral-magnetic/ferroelectric bilayer using coupled spin dynamics simulations.

Findings

Electric fields can induce skyrmion-like structures in the electric component.

Magnetic fields influence the formation and switching of skyrmions.

Strong magnetoelectric coupling links electric and magnetic skyrmion behaviors.

Abstract

Magnetic Skyrmions and multiferroics are the most interesting objects in nanostructure science that have great potential in future spin-electronic technology. The study of multiferroic Skyrmions has attracted much interest in recent years. This article reports magnetic Bloch Skyrmions induced by an electric driving field in a composite bilayer (chiral-magnetic/ferroelectric bilayer) lattice. By using the spin dynamics method, we use a classical magnetic spin model and an electric pseudospin model, which are coupled by a strong magnetoelectric coupling in the dynamical simulations. Interestingly, we observe some skyrmion-like objects in the electric component either during the switching process or by applying a magnetic field, which is due to the connection between the electric and the magnetic structures.