Controlling the Interlayer Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya Interaction by Electrical Currents

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 23; no. 15; pp. 7070 - 7075
• Main Authors: Kammerbauer, Fabian, Choi, Won-Young, Freimuth, Frank, Lee, Kyujoon, Frömter, Robert, Han, Dong-Soo, Lavrijsen, Reinoud, Swagten, Henk J. M., Mokrousov, Yuriy, Kläui, Mathias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 09-08-2023
• Subjects: magnetization switching; spintronics; anomalous Hall effect; interlayer Dzyaloshinskii−Moriya interaction; synthetic antiferromagnet
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01709

The recently discovered interlayer Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (IL-DMI) in multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy favors canting of spins in the in-plane direction. It could thus stabilize intriguing spin textures such as Hopfions. A key requirement for nucleation is to control the IL-DMI. Therefore, we investigate the influence of an electric current on a synthetic antiferromagnet with growth-induced IL-DMI. The IL-DMI is quantified by using out-of-plane hysteresis loops of the anomalous Hall effect while applying a static in-plane magnetic field at varied azimuthal angles. We observe a shift in the azimuthal dependence with an increasing current, which we conclude to originate from the additional in-plane symmetry breaking introduced by the current flow. Fitting the angular dependence, we demonstrate the presence of an additive current-induced term that linearly increases the IL-DMI in the direction of current flow. This opens the possibility of easily manipulating 3D spin textures by currents.