Effect of interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction on polarized neutrons reflection

TL;DR

This paper investigates how interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI) affects polarized neutron reflection in multilayered magnetic films, revealing polarization-dependent asymmetries useful for studying chiral magnetic textures.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for analyzing the impact of iDMI on polarized neutron reflectometry in multilayers with random anisotropy, addressing limitations of SANS.

Findings

iDMI causes polarization-dependent asymmetry in neutron reflection

Theoretical model predicts measurable effects of iDMI on polarized neutrons

Provides a new approach for studying chiral magnetic textures in thin films

Abstract

The antisymmetric Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) in noncentrosymmetric systems leads to various nonuniform chiral magnetic textures. Polarized neutron scattering is a powerful method for investigation such chiral distributions. The most used technique is a small-angle neutrons scattering (SANS). Multilayered magnetic films with the interface induced DMI (iDMI) can't be investigated by SANS because of their small volume. The appropriate technique is a polarized neutron reflectometry. Within the framework of the continuum theory of micromagnetics, we explore the impact of the iDMI on the polarized neutrons reflection from multilayers with random magnetic anisotropy. It is shown that the iDMI gives rise to a polarization-dependent asymmetric term in the reflection.