Scientific Highlights
Nano-engineered contact for the zero-field nucleation of magnetic skyrmions
Researchers in a joint collaboration between the PolLux endstation of the Swiss Light Source and the University of Leeds have achieved the reliable and reproducible electrical nucleation of magnetic skyrmions from a nano-engineered point contact structure, investigating the physical mechanisms driving the nucleation process.
Let’s not make big waves
A team of researchers generates ultra-short spin waves in an astoundingly simple material. Due to its potential to make computers faster and smartphones more efficient, spintronics is considered a promising concept for the future of electronics. In a collaboration including the Paul Scherrer Institut, a team of researchers has now successfully generated so-called spin waves much more easily and efficiently than was previously deemed possible. The researchers are presenting their results in the journal Physical Review Letters (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.117202).
Chemically mapping ice forming particles
Scientists have just nucleated ice in an X-ray microscope for the first time and they created chemical maps of those responsible.
A new spin in nano-electronics
In recent years, electronic data processing has been evolving in one direction only: The industry has downsized its components to the nanometer range. But this process is now reaching its physical limits. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) are therefore exploring spin waves or so-called magnons – a promising alternative for transporting information in more compact microchips. Cooperating with international partners, they have successfully generated and controlled extremely short-wavelength spin waves. The physicists achieved this feat by harnessing a natural magnetic phenomenon, as they explain in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Sub-ns magnetic domain wall motion dynamics
Magnetic domain walls can be reliably displaced by electrical currents, allowing for the fabrication of retentive magnetic memory elements without mechanically moving parts, such as e.g. the magnetic racetrack memory. Researchers in a joint collaboration between the PolLux endstation of the Swiss Light Source and the University of Leeds were able to investigate the dynamics of magnetic domain wall motion with a sub-ns time step, providing a substantial step forward towards the unraveling of the physical processes behind the current- and magnetic field-induced motion of magnetic domains.
Discrete Hall contribution of magnetic skyrmions
The reliable electrical detection of magnetic skyrmions is of fundamental importance for the application of such topological magnetic quasi-particles for data storage devices. Researchers in a joint collaboration between the University of Leeds and the PolLux endstation have investigated the electrical detection of isolated magnetic skyrmions in applications-relevant nanostructured devices, observing the presence of a strong skyrmion-dependent contribution to the Hall resistivity.
Creation and deletion of isolated magnetic skyrmions via electrical currents
The writing and deletion of magnetic Skyrmions is a fundamental step towards the fabrication of memory devices based on this promising spin configuration. Researchers at the Korea Institute of Technology have demonstrated the writing and deleting of isolated magnetic Skyrmions at room temperature in ferrimagnetic multilayer superlattice stacks using electrical currents.
Fresnel Zone Plates with Zone Widths below 10 nm
The spot size of a Fresnel Zone Plate lens is mainly determined by the zone widths of its outermost zone. It is therefore essential to fabricate zone plates with structures as small as possible for high-resolution X-ray microscopy. Researchers at the Laboratory for Micro- and Nanotechnology at the PSI have now developed Fresnel zone plates with zone widths well below 10 nm, down to 6.4 nm. These lenses are capable of pushing resolution in X-ray microscopy to the single-digit regime.
Time- and spatially-resolved magnetization dynamics driven by spin-orbit torques
Current-induced spin-orbit torques hold a great potential for manipulation of magnetization at ultrafast timescales. Researchers at ETH Zürich have demonstrated, using time-resolved STXM imaging at the Swiss Light Source, the influence of spin-orbit torques on the switching behaviour of Pt/Co/AlOx nanostructured elements.