Magnetic skyrmion annihilation by quantum mechanical tunneling
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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date
2020-08
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Mcode
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Language
en
Pages
8
Series
New Journal of Physics, Volume 22, issue 8
Abstract
Magnetic skyrmions are nano-scale magnetic states that could be used in various spintronics devices. A central issue is the mechanism and rate of various possible annihilation processes and the lifetime of metastable skyrmions. While most studies have focused on classical over-the-barrier mechanism for annihilation, it is also possible that quantum mechanical tunneling through the energy barrier takes place. Calculations of the lifetime of magnetic skyrmions in a two-dimensional lattice are presented and the rate of tunneling compared with the classical annihilation rate. A remarkably strong variation in the onset temperature for tunneling and the lifetime of the skyrmion is found as a function of the values of parameters in the extended Heisenberg Hamiltonian, i.e. the out-of-plane anisotropy, Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and applied magnetic field. Materials parameters and conditions are identified where the onset of tunneling could be observed on a laboratory time scale. In particular, it is predicted that skyrmion tunneling could be observed in the PdFe/Ir(111) system when an external magnetic field on the order of 6Tis applied.Description
Keywords
skyrmion, tunneling, lifetime, instanton, STATES, TRANSITION
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Citation
Vlasov, S M, Bessarab, P F, Lobanov, I S, Potkina, M N, Uzdin, V M & Jonsson, H 2020, 'Magnetic skyrmion annihilation by quantum mechanical tunneling', New Journal of Physics, vol. 22, no. 8, 083013. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ab9f6d