Intrinsic topological spin probes for electrical imaging of nanoscale energy landscapes

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel magnetic microscopy technique that uses topological spin textures as intrinsic probes to directly image and quantify disorder and energy landscapes within nanoscale magnetic devices.

Contribution

The authors introduce an internal magnetic imaging method utilizing magnetic vortex cores as mobile probes, enabling direct mapping of disorder in multilayer magnetic systems without external probes.

Findings

Resolved defect-induced potentials with nanometer precision

Quantified local pinning forces within magnetic devices

Demonstrated internal spin textures as spectroscopic disorder probes

Abstract

Disorder in magnetic materials prevents reliable control of spin textures and constrains their integration into spintronic devices. Existing methods access disorder only indirectly through external imaging probes or bulk transport measurements, leaving the internal energy landscape inaccessible. We introduce an intrinsic magnetic microscopy method in which a topological spin texture serves as a mobile probe of disorder, directly mapping energy landscapes inside multilayer devices without probe-sample separation. Using a ~10-nm magnetic vortex core confined within a magnetic tunnel junction, we track its displacement with nanometer-scale sensitivity to resolve intrinsic and engineered defect-induced potentials and directly quantify local pinning forces. This framework establishes spin textures as internal spectroscopic probes of disorder and enables quantitative engineering of pinning structures in functional magnetic systems.