Skyrmion-Mediated Voltage-Controlled Switching of Ferromagnets for Reliable and Energy-Efficient Two-Terminal Memory

We propose a two-terminal nanomagnetic memory element based on magnetization reversal of a perpendicularly magnetized nanomagnet employing a unipolar voltage pulse that modifies the perpendicular anisotropy of the system. Our work demonstrates that the presence of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction can create an alternative route for magnetization reversal that obviates the need for utilizing precessional magnetization dynamics as well as a bias magnetic field that are employed in traditional voltage control of magnetic anisotropy (VCMA)-based switching of perpendicular magnetization. We show with extensive micromagnetic simulation, in the presence of thermal noise, that the proposed skyrmion-mediated VCMA switching mechanism is robust at room temperature leading to extremely low error switching while also being potentially 1-2 orders of magnitude more energy efficient than state-of-the-art spin transfer torque-based switching.