Chirality-dependent energy induced by spin-orbit torque-driven artificial spin texture

Abstract

Recently, vast research has been under investigation on the role of chirality in magnetization dynamics, an area that currently lacks a comprehensive understanding. To gain further insight into the importance of chirality, we explore the effects of varying the degree of chirality. To investigate these effects, we have fabricated samples with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy symmetry breaking through local helium ion irradiation with various azimuthal angles and degrees of irradiation. In this system, the spin-orbit torque can induce artificial spin texture, and our azimuthal angle and degree of chirality dependent results reveal a clear cosine dependence and a nonlinear increase, respectively. It implies the system not only follows the energy contribution of interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction but also has a nonlinear impact depending on anisotropy asymmetry induced chirality differences. These experimental observations are consistent with our theoretical model and micromagnetic simulations, supporting our experimental results. Overall, our findings provide further insights into the role of chirality in magnetization dynamics and may have important implications for the development of future magnetic devices.

Keywords

• Chirality
• Noncollinear spin system
• Interfacial dzyloshinskii-moriya interaction
• Spin-orbit torque