Abstract

Over the years, spinorbitronics developed into a healthy and active research field, encompassing both fundamental new physics as well as prospective technological developments hinging on the discovery of novel concepts for magnetic bits, their stability, manipulation and efficient detection. In this context, magnetic skyrmions, which are spin-swirling textures of topological nature, emerged as particles with high potential to store and transport information. This is however hindered by various challenges, which affect their detection, nucleation, motion and velocity. In this talk, I will introduce all-electrical detection mechanisms enabling to detect the chiral nature of skyrmions, being ferromagnetic (FM) or antiferromagnetic (AFM), within a current-perpendicular-to-plane geometry [1]. I will discuss thin-film materials that host intrinsic AFM skyrmions, which remarkably form interpenetrating chains in a row-wise AFM Cr film deposited on a PdFe bilayer/Ir(111) substrate [2]. These skyrmions exhibit a rich, anisotropic skyrmion Hall effect, challenging the expectation that AFM skyrmions are immune to this phenomenon [3]. Finally, I will delve into a process that we termed ‘kagomerization’, where a two-dimensional kagome lattice emerges through the reconstruction of transition metal monolayers on heavy metals using a hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) overlayer [4]. Kagomerization is rather generic, leading to electronic signatures of Kagome lattices while inducing a rich family of topological spin-textures, including skyrmions and bimerons. These findings open exciting avenues for engineering and detecting chiral entities for spintronics applications.

[1] I. L. Fernandes, S. Blügel, S. Lounis, Nat. Commun. 13, 1576 (2022)
[2] A. Aldarawsheh, I. L. Fernandes, S. Brinker, M. Sallermann, M. Abusaa, S. Blügel, S. Lounis, Nat. Comm. 13, 7369 (2022)
[3] A. Aldarawsheh, M. Sallermann, M. Abusaa, S. Lounis, npj Spintronics 2, 41 (2024)
[4] H. Zhou, M. dos Santos Dias, Y. Zhang, W. Zhao, S. Lounis, Nature Communications 15, 4854 (2024)