Publication Date:
2015-06-13
Description:
The formation of soap bubbles from thin films is accompanied by topological transitions. Here we show how a magnetic topological structure, a skyrmion bubble, can be generated in a solid-state system in a similar manner. Using an inhomogeneous in-plane current in a system with broken inversion symmetry, we experimentally "blow" magnetic skyrmion bubbles from a geometrical constriction. The presence of a spatially divergent spin-orbit torque gives rise to instabilities of the magnetic domain structures that are reminiscent of Rayleigh-Plateau instabilities in fluid flows. We determine a phase diagram for skyrmion formation and reveal the efficient manipulation of these dynamically created skyrmions, including depinning and motion. The demonstrated current-driven transformation from stripe domains to magnetic skyrmion bubbles could lead to progress in skyrmion-based spintronics.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jiang, Wanjun -- Upadhyaya, Pramey -- Zhang, Wei -- Yu, Guoqiang -- Jungfleisch, M Benjamin -- Fradin, Frank Y -- Pearson, John E -- Tserkovnyak, Yaroslav -- Wang, Kang L -- Heinonen, Olle -- te Velthuis, Suzanne G E -- Hoffmann, Axel -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Jul 17;349(6245):283-6. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa1442. Epub 2015 Jun 11.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439, USA. ; Device Research Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. ; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. ; Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439, USA. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. Northwestern-Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. Computation Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. ; Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439, USA. hoffmann@anl.gov.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26067256" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink
