Magnetic textures can be manipulated by electric currents via the mechanisms of spin-transfer and spin-orbit-torques. We review how these torques can be exploited to create chiral magnetic textures in magnets with broken inversion symmetries, including domain walls and skyrmions. These chiral textures can also be moved by (electric) currents and obey very rich dynamics. For example, magnetic domain walls feature the famous Walker breakdown, and magnetic whirls are subject to the skyrmion Hall effect, which is rooted in their real-space topology. These properties led to a variety of potential novel applications which we briefly overview.
One-dimensional (1D) topologically protected states are usually formed at the interface between two-dimensional (2D) materials with different topological invariants. Therefore, 1D chiral interface channels (CICs) can be created at the boundary of two quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) insulators with different Chern numbers. Such a QAH junction can function as a chiral edge current distributer at zero magnetic field, but its realization remains challenging. Here, by employing an in-situ mechanical mask, we use molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to synthesize QAH insulator junctions, in which two QAH insul…
Magnetization dynamics driven by an electric field could provide long-term benefits to information technologies because of its ultralow power consumption. Meanwhile, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in interfacially asymmetric multilayers consisting of ferromagnetic and heavy-metal layers can stabilize topological spin textures, such as chiral domain walls, skyrmions, and skyrmion bubbles. These topological spin textures can be controlled by an electric field, and hold promise for building advanced spintronic devices. Here, we present an experimental and numerical study on the electric fi…
Majorana zero-modes in a superconductor are midgap states localized in the core of a vortex or bound to the end of a nanowire. They are anyons with non-Abelian braiding statistics, but when they are immobile one cannot demonstrate this by exchanging them in real space and indirect methods are needed. As a real-space alternative, we propose to use the chiral motion along the boundary of the superconductor to braid a mobile vortex in the edge channel with an immobile vortex in the bulk. The measurement scheme is fully electrical and deterministic: edge vortices ($π$-phase domain walls) are creat…
A gear effect is demonstrated at parallel and cross junctions between boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) via atomistic simulations. The atoms of neighboring BNNTs are meshed together at the junctions like gear teeth through long-range non-covalent interaction, which are shown to be able to transmit motion and power. The sliding motion of a BNNT can be spontaneously translated to rotating motion of an adjoining one or viceversa at a well-defined speed ratio. The transmittable motion and force strongly depend on the helical lattice structure of BNNTs represented by a chiral angle. The motion transm…
Chiral domain walls of Neel type emerge in heterostructures that include heavy metal (HM) and ferromagnetic metal (FM) layers owing to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction at the HM/FM interface. In developing storage class memories based on the current induced motion of chiral domain walls, it remains to be seen how dense such domain walls can be packed together. Here we show that a universal short range repulsion that scales with the strength of the DM interaction exists among chiral domain walls. The distance between the two walls can be reduced with application of out of plane field,…
Inevitable for the basic principles of skyrmion racetrack-like applications is not only their confined motion along one-dimensional channels but also their controlled creation and annihilation. Helical magnets have been suggested to naturally confine the motion of skyrmions along the tracks formed by the helices, which also allow for high-speed skyrmion motion. We propose a protocol to create topological magnetic structures in a helical background. We furthermore analyse the stability and current-driven motion of the skyrmions in a helical background with in-plane uniaxial anisotropy fixing th…
We show that a temperature gradient induces an ac electric current in multiferroic insulators when the sample is embedded in a circuit. We also show that a thermal gradient can be used to move magnetic skyrmions in insulating chiral magnets: the induced magnon flow from the hot to the cold region drives the skyrmions in the opposite direction via a magnonic spin transfer torque. Both results are combined to compute the effect of skyrmion motion on the ac current generation and demonstrate that skyrmions in insulators are a promising route for spin caloritronics applications.
The process of coherent creation of particle - hole excitations by an electric field in graphene is quantitatively described using a dynamic "first quantized" approach. We calculate the evolution of current density, number of pairs and energy in ballistic regime using the tight binding model. The series in electric field strength $E$ up to third order in both DC and AC are calculated. We show how the physics far from the two Dirac points enters various physical quantities in linear response and how it is related to the chiral anomaly. The third harmonic generation and the imaginary part of con…
Magnetic domain-walls (DWs) with a preferred chirality exhibit very efficient current-driven motion. Since structural inversion asymmetry (SIA) is required for their stability, the observation of chiral domain walls in highly symmetric Pt/Co/Pt is intriguing. Here, we tune the layer asymmetry in this system and observe, by current-assisted DW depinning experiments, a small chiral field which sensitively changes. Moreover, we convincingly link the observed efficiency of DW motion to the DW texture, using DW resistance as a direct probe for the internal orientation of the DW under the influence …
In metallic ferromagnets, the interaction between local magnetic moments and conduction electrons renormalizes parameters of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation such as the gyromagnetic ratio and the Gilbert damping, and makes them dependent on the magnetic configurations. Although the effects of the renormalization for nonchiral ferromagnets are usually minor and hardly detectable, we show that the renormalization does play a crucial role for chiral magnets. Here the renormalization is chiral and as such we predict experimentally identifiable effects on the phenomenology of magnetization dyn…
We investigate proximity-induced mixed spin-singlet and spin-triplet superconducting state on the surface states of a topological insulator. Such hybrid structure features fundamentally distinct electron-hole excitations and resulting effective superconducting subgap. Studying the particle-hole and time-reversal symmetry properties of the mixed state Dirac-Bogoliubov-de Gennes effective Hamiltonian gives rise to manifesting possible topological phase exchange of surface states, since the mixed-spin channels leads to appearance of a band gap on the surface states. This is verified by determinin…
Schrödinger equation for pair of two massless Dirac particles when magnetic field is applied in Landau gauge is solved exactly. In this case the separation of center of mass and relative motion is obtained. Landau quantization $ε=\pm\,B\sqrt{l}$ for pair of two Majorana fermions coupled via a Coulomb potential from massless chiral Dirac equation in cylindric coordinate is found. The root ambiguity in energy spectrum leads into Landau quantization for bielectron, when the states in which the one simultaneously exists are allowed. The tachyon solution with imaginary energy in Cooper problem ($ε^…
Magnetic skyrmion is a topologically protected domain-wall structure at nanoscale, which could serve as a basic building block for advanced spintronic devices. Here, we propose a microwave field-driven skyrmionic device with the transistor-like function, where the motion of a skyrmion in a voltage-gated ferromagnetic nanotrack is studied by micromagnetic simulations. It is demonstrated that the microwave field can drive the motion of a skyrmion by exciting propagating spin waves, and the skyrmion motion can be governed by a gate voltage. We also investigate the microwave current-assisted creat…
The optical modes of photonic structures are the so-called TE and TM modes which bring intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and chirality to these systems. This, combined with the unique flexibility of design of the photonic potential, and the possibility to mix photon states with excitonic resonances, sensitive to magnetic field and interactions, allows to achieve many phenomena, often analogous to other solid state systems. In this contribution, we review in a qualitative and comprehensive way several of these realizations, namely the optical spin Hall effect, the creation of spin currents protecte…
Using the Lagrangian formalism, we solve analytically the equations of motion for current-induced domain-wall dynamics in a ferromagnet with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. An exact solution for the domain wall velocity is provided, including the effect of non-equilibrium conduction electron spin-density, Gilbert damping, and the Rashba interaction parameter. We demonstrate explicitly that the influence of spin-orbit interaction can be qualitatively different from the role of non-adiabatic spin-torque in the sense that the former is sensitive to the chirality of the domain wall whereas the latter …
Chiral superconductors have the ability to host topologically protected Majorana zero modes which have been proposed as future qubits for topological quantum computing. The recently introduced magnet--superconductor hybrid (MSH) systems consisting of magnetic adatoms deposited on the surface of conventional $s$-wave superconductors represent a promising candidate for the creation, detection, and manipulation of Majorana modes via scanning tunneling microscopy techniques. Here, we present four examples demonstrating the ability to engineer Majorana fermions in nanoscopic MSH systems by using at…
We study theoretically the impact of an applied DC-current on a mesoscopic chiral $p$-wave superconductor. Performing quasiclassical calculations on a two-dimensional system, with an external magnetic flux to generate a DC current, we show that the current can trigger a transition to a state with a domain wall between regions of different chiralities. The system shows an hysteretic behavior, as different domain wall configurations are possible for a given current. This domain wall creation mechanism can give new insights on recent experiments observing anomalous current variations in Sr${}_2$R…
We derive the equations of motion of a Domain Wall in a thin-film magnet coupled to the surface states of a Topological Insulator in the presence of of both an electric field along the Domain Wall and a magnetic field perpendicular to the junction. We show how the electric field acts as a chirality stabilizer holding off the appearance of Walker breakdown and enhancing the terminal velocity. We also propose a mechanism to reverse the Domain Wall chirality in a controllable manner by tuning the chiral current flowing through the Wall. An input from a weak perpendicular magnetic field is require…
We study both analytically and numerically the edge of two-dimensional ferromagnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions, considering both chiral magnets and magnets with interface-induced DM interactions. We show that in the field-polarized ferromagnetic phase magnon states exist which are bound to the edge, and we calculate their spectra within a continuum field theory. Upon lowering an external magnetic field, these bound magnons condense at a finite momentum and the edge becomes locally unstable. Micromagnetic simulations demonstrate that this edge instability triggers the creation…
Magnetic skyrmions have been the focus of intense research with promising applications in memory, logic and interconnect technology. Several schemes have been recently proposed and demonstrated to nucleate skyrmions. However, they either result in an uncontrolled skyrmion bubble production or are mostly targeted towards integration with racetrack memory device. In this work, we propose a novel scheme for a controlled single skyrmion nucleation in a confined nanowire geometry with sub-100 nm width using a generalized approach of "localized spin current injection" technique in material systems e…
In this short review a broad range of chiral phenomena observed in magnetic films (spin cycloid and skyrmion structures formation as well as chirality dependent domain wall motion) is considered under the perspective of spin flexoelectricity, i.e. the relation between bending of magnetization pattern and electric polarization. The similarity and the difference between the spin flexoelectricity and the newly emerged notion of spin flexomagnetism is discussed. The phenomenological arguments based on the geometrical idea of curvature-induced effects are supported by analysis of the microscopic me…
Controlled creation of localized magnetic textures beyond conventional $π$-skyrmions is an important problem in the field of magnetism. Here by means of spin dynamics simulations, Monte Carlo simulations and harmonic transition state theory we demonstrate that an elementary chiral magnetic soliton with zero topological charge -- the chiral droplet -- can be reliably created by thermal fluctuations in the presence of the tilted magnetic field. The proposed protocol relies on an unusual kinetics combining the effects of the entropic stabilization and low energy barrier for the nucleation of a to…
We measure and analyze the chirality of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) stabilized spin textures in multilayers of Ta/Co$_{20}$Fe$_{60}$B$_{20}$/MgO. The effective DMI is measured experimentally using domain wall motion measurements, both in the presence (using spin orbit torques) and absence of driving currents (using magnetic fields). We observe that the current-induced domain wall motion yields a change in effective DMI magnitude and opposite domain wall chirality when compared to field-induced domain wall motion (without current). We explore this effect, which we refer to as cu…
In this work, we utilize voltage controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) to manipulate magnetic skyrmions that are fixed in space. Memory devices based on this strategy can potentially be of smaller footprint and better energy efficiency than current-controlled motion-based skyrmionic devices. To demonstrate VCMA induced manipulation of skyrmions, we fabricate antiferromagnet/ferromagnet/oxide heterostructure films where skyrmions can be stabilized without any external magnetic field due to the presence of exchange bias. These isolated skyrmions were annihilated by applying a voltage pulse that …
We demonstrate that a sizable chiral charge pumping can be achieved at room temperature in graphene/Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG) bilayer systems. The effect, which cannot be attributed to the ordinary spin pumping, reveals itself in the creation of a dc electric field/voltage in graphene as a response to the dynamic magnetic excitations (spin waves) in an adjacent out-of-plane magnetized YIG film. We show that the induced voltage changes its sign when the orientation of the static magnetization is reversed, clearly indicating the broken spatial inversion symmetry in the studied system. The streng…
Hopfions are three-dimensional (3D) topological textures characterized by the integer Hopf invariant $Q_H$. Here, we present the realization of a zero--field, stable hopfion spin texture in a magnetic system consisting of a chiral magnet nanodisk sandwiched by two films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The preimages of the spin texture and numerical calculations of $Q_H$ show that the hopfion has $Q_H=1$. Furthermore, another non-trivial state that includes a monopole--antimonopole pair (MAP) is also stabilized in this system. By applying an external magnetic field, hopfion and MAP stat…
Semiclassical chiral fermions manifest the anomalous spin-Hall effect: when put into a pure electric field they suffer a side jump, analogous to what happens to their massive counterparts in non-commutative mechanics. The transverse shift is consistent with the conservation of the angular momentum. In a pure magnetic field instead, spiraling motion is found. Motion in Hall-type perpendicular electric and magnetic fields is also studied.
We derive the non-equilibrium kinetic equation describing the motion of chiral massless particles in the regime where it can be considered classically. We show that the Berry monopole which appears at the origin of the momentum space due to level crossing is responsible for the chiral magnetic and vortical effects.
