TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jin, Chiming
AU  - Li, Zi-An
AU  - Kovács, András
AU  - Caron, Jan
AU  - Zheng, Fengshan
AU  - Rybakov, Filipp N.
AU  - Kiselev, Nikolai S.
AU  - Du, Haifeng
AU  - Blügel, Stefan
AU  - Tian, Mingliang
AU  - Zhang, Yuheng
AU  - Farle, Michael
AU  - Dunin-Borkowski, Rafal
TI  - Control of morphology and formation of highly geometrically confined magnetic skyrmions
JO  - Nature Communications
VL  - 8
SN  - 2041-1723
CY  - London
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
M1  - FZJ-2017-03979
SP  - 15569
PY  - 2017
AB  - The ability to controllably manipulate magnetic skyrmions, small magnetic whirls with particle-like properties, in nanostructured elements is a prerequisite for incorporating them into spintronic devices. Here, we use state-of-the-art electron holographic imaging to directly visualize the morphology and nucleation of magnetic skyrmions in a wedge-shaped FeGe nanostripe that has a width in the range of 45–150 nm. We find that geometrically-confined skyrmions are able to adopt a wide range of sizes and ellipticities in a nanostripe that are absent in both thin films and bulk materials and can be created from a helical magnetic state with a distorted edge twist in a simple and efficient manner. We perform a theoretical analysis based on a three-dimensional general model of isotropic chiral magnets to confirm our experimental results. The flexibility and ease of formation of geometrically confined magnetic skyrmions may help to optimize the design of skyrmion-based memory devices.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000402751000001
C6  - pmid:28580935
DO  - DOI:10.1038/ncomms15569
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/830430
ER  -