Electrical-field-induced magnetic Skyrmion ground state in a two-dimensional chromium tri-iodide ferromagnetic monolayer

• Published in: AIP advances Vol. 8; no. 5; pp. 055316 - 055316-8
• Main Authors: Liu, Jie, Shi, Mengchao, Mo, Pinghui, Lu, Jiwu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 01-05-2018; AIP Publishing LLC
• Subjects: Chromium; Configurations; Density functional theory; Ferromagnetism; First principles; Ground state; Memory devices; Monolayers
• ISSN: 2158-3226; 2158-3226
• DOI: 10.1063/1.5030441

Using fully first-principles non-collinear self-consistent field density functional theory (DFT) calculations with relativistic spin-orbital coupling effects, we show that, by applying an out-of-plane electrical field on a free-standing two-dimensional chromium tri-iodide (CrI3) ferromagnetic monolayer, the Néel-type magnetic Skyrmion spin configurations become more energetically-favorable than the ferromagnetic spin configurations. It is revealed that the topologically-protected Skyrmion ground state is caused by the breaking of inversion symmetry, which induces the non-trivial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) and the energetically-favorable spin-canting configuration. Combining the ferromagnetic and the magnetic Skyrmion ground states, it is shown that 4-level data can be stored in a single monolayer-based spintronic device, which is of practical interests to realize the next-generation energy-efficient quaternary logic devices and multilevel memory devices.