Chirally coupled artificial spin ices

Magnetically coupled nanomagnets have many potential applications including nonvolatile memories, logic gates, and sensors. In order to realize functional two-dimensional networks of coupled nanoscale magnetic elements such as those used for magnetic logic devices and artificial spin ices, it is desirable to engineer the lateral magnetic couplings in a controllable way. In our previous work [Z.Luo, et al. Science 363, 1435 (2019)], we have demonstrated a novel method to control the lateral coupling between adjacent magnetic nanostructures based on the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). We have exploited this concept for various applications (as shown in Figure), making use of the fact that the chiral coupling is much stronger than the dipolar coupling.

Goals: 

The aim of this project is to utilize chirally coupled artificial spin ices to study collective behaviors of laterally coupled nanomagnets, such as ground state ordering in Ising-like lattices and exchange bias in macrospin Antiferromagnet/Ferromagnet-like interfaces.

Tasks:

  • State-of-the-art cleanroom preparation of the chirally coupled artificial spin ices using electron-beam lithography
  • Characterization of the artificial spin ices using magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) microscopy and magnetic force microscopy (MFM)

NUM laboratory: Laboratory for Multiscale Materials Experiments LMX

Contact person: Mr. Zhaochu Luo, email, phone: +41 56 310 54 94

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