Improving Néel Domain Walls Dynamics and Skyrmion Stability Using He Ion Irradiation

Abstract Ion irradiation with light ions is an appealing way to finely tune the magnetic properties of thin magnetic films and in particular the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). In this work, the effect of He⁺ irradiation on the magnetization reversal and on the domain wall dynamics of Pt/Co/AlOx trilayers is illustrated. Fluences up to 1.5 × 10¹⁵ ions cm⁻² strongly decrease the PMA, without affecting neither the spontaneous magnetization nor the strength of the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI). This confirms experimentally the robustness of the DMI interaction against interfacial chemical intermixing, already predicted by theory. In parallel with the decrease of the PMA, a strong decrease of the domain wall depinning field is observed after irradiation. This allows the domain walls to reach large maximum velocities with a lower magnetic field compared to that needed for the pristine films. Decoupling PMA from DMI can, therefore, be beneficial for the design of low energy devices based on domain wall dynamics. When the samples are irradiated with larger He⁺ fluences, the magnetization gets close to the out‐of‐plane/in‐plane reorientation transition, where ≈100nm size magnetic skyrmions are stabilized. It is observed that as the He⁺ fluence increases, the skyrmion size decreases while these magnetic textures become more stable against the application of an external magnetic field, as predicted by theoretical models developed for ultrathin films with labyrinthine domains.