Investigation of magnetic droplet solitons using x-ray holography with extended references

E. Burgos-Parra*, N. Bukin, S. Sani, A. I. Figueroa, G. Beutier, M. Dupraz, S. Chung, P. Dürrenfeld, Q. Tuan Le, S. M. Mohseni, A. Houshang, S. A. Cavill, R. J. Hicken, J. Åkerman, G. van der Laan, F. Y. Ogrin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A dissipative magnetic soliton, or magnetic droplet, is a structure that has been predicted to exist within a thin magnetic layer when non-linearity is balanced by dispersion, and a driving force counteracts the inherent damping of the spin precession. Such a soliton can be formed beneath a nano-contact (NC) that delivers a large spin-polarized current density into a magnetic layer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Although the existence of droplets has been confirmed from electrical measurements and by micromagnetic simulations, only a few attempts have been made to directly observe the magnetic landscape that sustains these structures, and then only for a restricted set of experimental parameter values. In this work we use and x-ray holography technique HERALDO, to image the magnetic structure of the [Co/Ni]x4 multilayer within a NC orthogonal pseudo spin-valve, for different range of magnetic fields and injected electric currents. The magnetic configuration imaged at −33 mA and 0.3 T for devices with 90 nm NC diameter reveals a structure that is within the range of current where the droplet soliton exist based on our electrical measurements and have it is consistent with the expected size of the droplet (∼100 nm diameter) and its spatial position within the sample. We also report the magnetisation configurations observed at lower DC currents in the presence of fields (0–50 mT), where it is expected to observe regimes of the unstable droplet formation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number11533
Number of pages7
JournalScientific Reports
Volume8
Issue number1
Early online date1 Aug 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2018

Bibliographical note

© The Author(s) 2018

Cite this