journal article·2019-07

Bulk Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction in amorphous ferrimagnetic alloys

Duck-Ho Kim, Mitsutaka Haruta, Hye-Won Ko, Gyungchoon Go, Hyeon-Jong Park, Tomoe Nishimura, Dae-Yun Kim, Takaya Okuno, Yuushou Hirata, Yasuhiro Futakawa, Hiroki Yoshikawa, Wooseung Ham, Sanghoon Kim, Hiroki Kurata, Arata Tsukamoto, Yoichi Shiota, Takahiro Moriyama, Sug-Bong Choe, Kyung-Jin Lee, Teruo Ono

Nature Materials· Volume 18· Issue 7
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Abstract

Symmetry breaking is a fundamental concept that prevails in many branches of physics1-5. In magnetic materials, broken inversion symmetry induces the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), which results in fascinating physical behaviours6-14 with the potential for application in future spintronic devices15-17. Here, we report the observation of a bulk DMI in GdFeCo amorphous ferrimagnets. The DMI is found to increase linearly with an increasing thickness of the ferrimagnetic layer, which is a clear signature of the bulk nature of DMI. We also found that the DMI is independent of the interface between the heavy metal and ferrimagnetic layer. This bulk DMI is attributed to an asymmetric distribution of the elemental content in the GdFeCo layer, with spatial inversion symmetry broken throughout the layer. We expect that our experimental identification of a bulk DMI will open up additional possibilities to exploit this interaction in a wide range of materials.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Magnetic properties of thin films · Theoretical and Computational Physics · Magneto-Optical Properties and Applications

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

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