Magnetic skyrmions are topologically stable nanoscale particle-like objects that were discovered in 2009. Since that time, intense research interest has led to the identification of numerous compounds that support skyrmions over a range of conditions spanning cryogenic to room temperatures. Skyrmions can be set into motion under various types of driving, and the combination of their size, stability, and dynamics makes them ideal candidates for numerous applications. Skyrmions represent a new class of system in which the energy scales of the skyrmion-skyrmion interactions, sample disorder, temperature, and drive can compete. A growing body of work indicates that the static and dynamic states of skyrmions can be influenced strongly by pinning or disorder in the sample; thus, an understanding of such effects is essential for the eventual use of skyrmions in applications. In this article we review the current state of knowledge regarding individual skyrmions and skyrmion assemblies interacting with quenched disorder or pinning. We outline the microscopic mechanisms for skyrmion pinning, including the repulsive and attractive interactions that can arise from impurities, grain boundaries, or nanostructures. This is followed by descriptions of depinning phenomena, sliding states over disorder, the effect of pinning on the skyrmion Hall angle, the competition between thermal and pinning effects, the control of skyrmion motion using ordered potential landscapes such as one- or two-dimensional periodic asymmetric substrates, the creation of skyrmion diodes, and skyrmion ratchet effects. We highlight the distinctions arising from internal modes and the strong gyroscopic or Magnus forces that cause the dynamical states of skyrmions to differ from those of other systems with pinning. We also discuss future directions and open questions related to the pinning and dynamics in skyrmion systems.
High precision skyrmion pinning by an intentionally created magnetic structure is important in skyrmion manipulation. Here, we consider skyrmion pinning by various types of disks. Among other findings, we clarify that, in terms of pinning position and pinning potential landscape, one needs to distinguish thin-wall skyrmions from thick-wall skyrmions because of fundamental differences. A skyrmion wall prefers areas with a weaker exchange stiffness, a larger DMI constant, or a smaller magnetic anisotropy while a skyrmion core experiences only the magnetic anisotropy, not exchange stiffness and D…
Resting on multi-scale modelling simulations, we explore dynamical aspects characterizing skyrmions driven by spin-transfer-torque towards repulsive and pinning 3d and 4d single atomic defects embedded in a Pd layer deposited on the Fe/Ir(111) surface. The latter is known to host sub-10 nm skyrmions which are of great interest in information technology. The Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation is parametrized with magnetic exchange interactions extracted from first-principles. Depending on the nature of the defect and the magnitude of the applied magnetic field, the skyrmion deforms by either shri…
A key issue for skyrmion dynamics and devices are pinning effects present in real systems. While posing a challenge for the realization of conventional skyrmionics devices, exploiting pinning effects can enable non-conventional computing approaches if the details of the pinning in real samples are quantified and understood. We demonstrate that using thermal skyrmion dynamics, we can characterize the pinning of a sample and we ascertain the spatially resolved energy landscape. To understand the mechanism of the pinning, we probe the strong skyrmion size and shape dependence of the pinning. Magn…
Skyrmions are nanoscale magnetic structures with features promising for future low-power memory or logic devices. In this work, we demonstrate novel scanning techniques based on nitrogen vacancy center magnetometry that simultaneously probe both the magnetic dynamics and structure of room temperature skyrmion bubbles in a thin film system Ta/CoFeB/MgO. We confirm the handedness of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in this material and extract the helicity angle of the skyrmion bubbles. Our measurements also show that the skyrmion bubbles in this material change size in discrete steps, depe…
Using particle-based simulations, we examine the collective dynamics of skyrmions interacting with periodic pinning arrays, focusing on the impact of the Magnus force on the sliding phases. As a function of increasing pinning strength, we find a series of distinct dynamical phases, including an interstitial flow phase, a moving disordered state, a moving crystal, and a segregated cluster state. The transitions between these states produce signatures in the skyrmion lattice structure, the skyrmion Hall angle, the velocity fluctuation distributions, and the velocity-force curves. The moving clus…
A theoretical study on the dynamics of an antiferromagnetic (AFM) skyrmion is indispensable for revealing the underlying physics and understanding the numerical and experimental observations. In this work, we present a reliable theoretical treatment of the spin current induced motion of an AFM skyrmion in the absence and presence of pinning defect. For an ideal AFM system free of defect, the skyrmion motion velocity as a function of the intrinsic parameters can be derived, based on the concept that the skyrmion profile agrees well with the 360 domain wall formula, leading to an explicit descri…
Using numerical simulations, we examine the nonlinear dynamics of skyrmions driven over random pinning. For weak pinning, the skyrmions depin elastically, retaining sixfold ordering; however, at the onset of motion there is a dip in the magnitude of the structure factor peaks due to a decrease in positional ordering, indicating that the depinning transition can be detected using the structure factor even within the elastic depinning regime. At higher drives the moving skyrmion lattice regains full ordering. For increasing pinning strength, we find a transition from elastic to plastic depinning…
In the cubic chiral magnet Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$Si a metastable state comprising of topologically nontrivial spin whirls, so-called skyrmions, may be preserved down to low temperatures by means of field cooling the sample. This metastable skyrmion state is energetically separated from the topologically trivial ground state by a considerable potential barrier, a phenomenon also referred to as topological protection. Using magnetic force microscopy on the surface of a bulk crystal, we show that certain positions are preferentially and reproducibly decorated with metastable skyrmions, indicating tha…
Current-driven skyrmion motion in random granular films is investigated with interesting findings. For a given current, there exists a critical disorder strength below which its transverse motion could either be boosted below a critical damping or be hindered above the critical damping, resulting in current and disorder dependences of skyrmion Hall angle. The boosting comes mainly from the random force that is opposite to the driving force (current). The critical damping depends on the current density and disorder strength. However, the longitudinal motion of a skyrmion is always hindered by t…
Spin torque nano-oscillator has been extensively studied both theoretically and experimentally in recent decades due to its potential applications in future microwave communication technology and neuromorphic computing. In this work, we present a skyrmion-based spin torque nano-oscillator driven by a spatially uniform direct current, where the skyrmion is confined by two pinning sites. Different from other skyrmion-based oscillators that arise from the circular motion or the breathing mode of a skyrmion, the steady-state oscillatory motions are produced by the periodic deformation of an elonga…
Skyrmions and skyrmion crystal (SkX) discovered in chiral magnets show unique physical properties due to their nontrivial topology such as the stability against the annihilation and the motion driven by the ultralow current density, which can be advantageous for the device applications such as magnetic memories. Especially, the chiral dynamics, i.e., the velocity perpendicular to the force acting on a skyrmion, is a key to avoid the impurity potential and enhances its mobility. However, the collective pinning of SkX occurs by the disorder, which is crucial for its low energy properties. Here, …
Topological spin textures can serve as non-volatile information carriers. Here we study the current-induced dynamics of an isolated magnetic skyrmion on a nanoscale square-grid pinning pattern formed by orthogonal defect lines with reduced magnetic anisotropy. The skyrmion on the square grid can be pixelated with a quantized size of the grid. We demonstrate that the position, size, and shape of skyrmion on the square grid are electrically configurable. The skyrmion center is quantized to be on the grid and the skyrmion may show a hopping motion instead of a continuous motion. We find that the …
Diameter-modulated nanowires offer an important paradigm to design the magnetization response of 3D magnetic nanostructures by engineering the domain wall pinning. With the aim to understand its nature and to control the process, we analyze the magnetization response in FeCo modulated polycrystalline two-segment nanowires varying the minor diameter. Our modelling indicates a very complex behavior with a strong dependence on the disorder distribution and an important role of topologically non-trivial magnetization structures. We demonstrate that modulated nanowires with a small diameter differe…
Using Langevin molecular dynamics simulations we study relaxation processes of interacting skyrmion systems with and without quenched disorder. Using the typical diffusion length as the time-dependent length characterizing the relaxation process, we find that clean systems always display dynamical scaling, and this even in cases where the typical length is not a simple power law of time. In the presence of the Magnus force, two different regimes are identified as a function of the noise strength. The Magnus force has also a major impact when attractive pinning sites are present, as this veloci…
Recently, magnetic skyrmion has emerged as an active topic of fundamental study and applications in magnetic materials research. Magnetic skyrmions are vortex-like spin excitations with topological protection and therefore are more robust to pinning compared with magnetic domain walls. We employ atomistic simulations to create room-temperature ultra-small Neel skyrmions in amorphous ferrimagnet. The fast propagation and low-dissipation dynamics of ultra-small ferrimagnetic skyrmions make them attractive for utilization as an alternative to domain walls in spin-based memory and logic devices.
Magnetic skyrmions are compact chiral spin textures that exhibit a rich variety of topological phenomena and hold potential for developing high-density memory devices and novel computing schemes driven by spin currents. Here, we demonstrate room temperature interfacial stabilization and current-driven control of skyrmion bubbles in the ferrimagnetic insulator Tm3Fe5O12 (TmIG) coupled to Pt. We track the current-induced motion of individual skyrmion bubbles. The ferrimagnetic order of the crystal together with the interplay of spin-orbit torques and pinning determine the skyrmion dynamics in Tm…
Magnetic skyrmions are topological solitons that exhibit an increased stability against annihilation, and can be displaced with low current densities, making them a promising candidate as an information carrier. In order to demonstrate a viable skyrmion-based memory device, it is necessary to reliably and reproducibly nucleate, displace, detect, and delete the magnetic skyrmions. While the skyrmion displacement and detection have both been investigated in detail, much less attention has been dedicated to the study of the sub-ns dynamics of the skyrmion nucleation process. Only limited studies …
The skyrmion-substrate interaction is an important issue to consider when studying particle-like skyrmions in nanostructures, which may strongly affect the skyrmion dynamics and lead to complex dynamic phenomena. Here, we report the current-driven dynamic behaviors of particle-like skyrmions interacting with the funnel obstacle in a ferromagnetic layer. We computationally demonstrate that a funnel obstacle with enhanced perpendicular magnetic anisotropy can be used to modify the dynamics of skyrmions due to the repulsive skyrmion-funnel interaction, which could generate several nontrivial effe…
Using a particle based model, we investigate the skyrmion dynamical behavior in a channel where the upper wall contains divots of one depth and the lower wall contains divots of a different depth. Under an applied driving force, skyrmions in the channels move with a finite skyrmion Hall angle that deflects them toward the upper wall for $-x$ direction driving and the lower wall for $+x$ direction driving. When the upper divots have zero height, the skyrmions are deflected against the flat upper wall for $-x$ direction driving and the skyrmion velocity depends linearly on the drive. For $+x$ di…
Tunable Emergent Gauge Fields from Skyrmions in a Quasicrystalline Lattice
Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Tennessee（田纳西大学物理与天文学系）；Instituto de Física de Líquidos y Sistemas Biológicos, CONICET, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata（拉普拉塔国立大学精确科学学院液体与生物系统物理研究所，阿根廷国家科学研究委员会）；Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Facultad de Ingeniería, UNLP（拉普拉塔国立大学工程学院基础科学系）；Neutron Scattering Division and Shull-Wollan Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory（橡树岭国家实验室中子散射处和舒尔-沃兰中心）；Centro Atómico Bariloche and Instituto Balseiro, CNEA（巴里洛切原子中心巴尔塞罗研究所，阿根廷核能委员会）；Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)（阿根廷国家科学研究委员会）；Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología CNEA-CONICET（CNEA-CONICET纳米科学与技术研究所）
When magnetic skyrmions are moved via currents, they do not strictly travel along the path of the current, instead their motion also gains a transverse component. This so-called skyrmion Hall effect can be detrimental in potential skyrmion devices because it drives skyrmions towards the edge of their hosting material where they face potential annihilation. Here we experimentally modify a skyrmion model system - an atomic Pd/Fe bilayer on Ir(111) - by decorating the film edge with ferromagnetic Co/Fe patches. Employing spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy, we demonstrate that this ferro…
We demonstrate room-temperature stabilization of dipolar magnetic skyrmions with diameters in the range of $100$ nm in a single ultrathin layer of the Heusler alloy Co$_2$FeAl (CFA) under moderate magnetic fields. Current-induced skyrmion dynamics in microwires is studied with a scanning Nitrogen-Vacancy magnetometer operating in the photoluminescence quenching mode. We first demonstrate skyrmion nucleation by spin-orbit torque and show that its efficiency can be significantly improved using tilted magnetic fields, an effect which is not specific to Heusler alloys and could be advantageous for…
Antiferromagnetic Skyrmion Scattering Revealed by Direct Time-Resolved Imaging of Collective Dynamics
Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz（美因茨约翰内斯·古腾堡大学物理研究所）；Laboratory for Nanoelectronics and Spintronics, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University（东北大学电气通信研究所纳米电子与自旋电子学实验室）；Singulus Technologies AG（辛古卢斯科技有限公司）；Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems（马克斯·普朗克智能系统研究所）；Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH（柏林亥姆霍兹材料能源中心有限公司）
Magnetic skyrmions are nanoscale spin textures touted as next-generation computing elements. When subjected to lateral currents, skyrmions move at considerable speeds. Their topological charge results in an additional transverse deflection known as the skyrmion Hall effect (SkHE). While promising, their dynamic phenomenology with current, skyrmion size, geometric effects and disorder remain to be established. Here we report on the ensemble dynamics of individual skyrmions forming dense arrays in Pt/Co/MgO wires by examining over 20,000 instances of motion across currents and fields. The skyrmi…
Magnetic Skyrmion Interacting with Optical Skyrmion
Waseda University（早稻田大学）；University of Shanghai for Science and Technology（上海理工大学）；The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学）；The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen（香港中文大学（深圳））；National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学）
Thermally activated processes are key to understanding the dynamics of physical systems. Thermal diffusion of (quasi-)particles for instance not only yields information on transport and dissipation processes but is also an exponentially sensitive tool to reveal emergent system properties and enable novel applications such as probabilistic computing. Here we probe the thermal dynamics of topologically stabilized magnetic skyrmion quasi-particles. We demonstrate in a specially tailored low pinning multilayer material system pure skyrmion diffusion that dominates the dynamics. Finally, we analyse…
