Phd Thesis Proposal 2015

Name of laboratory : Laboratoire de Physique des Solides

Address : Centre Scientifique d’Orsay, Bâtiment 510, 91405 Orsay CEDEX
Name of thesis advisor : Thiaville, André
E-mail : andre.thiaville@u-psud.fr Phone number : 01 69 15 53 76
Web Page : https://www.lps.u-psud.fr/spip.php?rubrique43&lang=fr
Source of funding : to be found
Doctoral School : PIF

Title : Magnetic skyrmions in ultrathin films

Abstract : Beyond domain walls and vortices, the seek for ultra small magnetic textures now
focuses on skyrmions. These kind of nanobubbles with a given chirality correspond to
topological states as it is impossible to switch continuously back to the uniform
magnetization state. Predicted in the 90’s [1] they have only been observed recently in
ultrathin magnetic films in contact with high spin-orbit coupling underlayer [2] where a chiral
interaction named Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya is induced at the interface. The properties of those
skyrmions are extremely promising from the point of view of applications (new ultra dense
memories [3]) as well as on the fundamental point of view (in particular for the study of
topological Hall effect, which describes the deviation of the electron trajectory in the vicinity
of a topological texture [4]).

The goal of this thesis is to study skyrmion stabilized in ultrathin films. Due to the small size,
scanning probe techniques will be the technique of choice: magnetic force microscopy,
ballistic electron emission microscopy (scanning tunneling microscopy based technique [5])
and scanning nano magnetometry (recently developed technique in collaboration with
Laboratoire Aimé Cotton [6]). The films will be grown in our UHV evaporation setup, with
complete freedom on materials and thicknesses. Starting from the study of the skyrmion
structure as a function of the different parameters (applied magnetic field, materials and
layer thicknesses), the ultimate goal is to manipulate them (nucleation and annihilation,
motion).
The work will be co-directed by Stanislas Rohart (CR CNRS).

Référence :
[1] A. N. Bogdanov and D. A. Yablonskii, Sov. Phys.–JETP 68, 101 (1989)
[2] S. Heinze et al. Nature Phys. 7, 713 (2011).
[3] J. Sampaio, SR, AT et al., Nat. Nanotechnol. (2013)
[4] T. Schultz et al. Nature Phys. 8, 301–304 (2012).
[5] A. Bellec, SR, AT et al. Europhys. Lett. 91, 17009 (2010)
[6] L. Rondin, SR, AT et al. Nature Com 4, 2279 (2013)

List significant keywords : Magnetism, spintronics, scanning probe microscopy

List required skills : Solid state physics