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

TL;DR

This study directly images chiral domain walls and Neel-type skyrmioniums in ferrimagnetic alloys, revealing temperature-dependent spin textures and stable skyrmioniums with potential for advanced spintronic applications.

Contribution

It provides the first direct imaging of Neel-type skyrmioniums in ferrimagnetic multilayers and analyzes their temperature-dependent properties and stability.

Findings

GdFeCo exhibits pure right-hand Neel-type domain walls over a large temperature range.

Presence of negative Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction from interfaces.

Discovery of stable Neel-type skyrmionium with no skyrmion Hall effect.

Abstract

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.