Non-equilibrium heating path for the laser-induced nucleation of metastable skyrmion lattices

Abstract

Understanding formation of metastable phases by rapid energy pumping and quenching has been intriguing scientists for a long time. This issue is crucial for technologically relevant systems such as magnetic skyrmions which are frequently metastable at zero field. Using Atomistic Spin Dynamics simulations, we show the possibility of creating metastable skyrmion lattices in cobalt-based trilayers by femtosecond laser heating. Similar to the formation of supercooled ice droplets in the gas phase, high temperature ultrafast excitation creates magnon drops and their fast relaxation leads to acquisition and quenching of the skyrmion topological protection. The interplay between different processes corresponds to a specific excitation window which can be additionally controlled by external fields. The results are contrasted with longer-scale heating leading to a phase transition to the stable states. Our results provide insight into the dynamics of the highly non-equilibrium pathway for spin excitations and pave additional routes for skyrmion-based information technologies.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Olleros-Rodríguez, Pablo Strungaru, Mara (mss555@york.ac.uk) Ruta, Sergiu (sir503@york.ac.uk) Gavriloaea, Paul Iulian Gudín, Adrián Perna, Paolo Chantrell, Roy https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5410-5615 Chubykalo-Fesenko, Oksana
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	Funding Information: The authors acknowledge the networking opportunities provided by the European COST Action CA17123 “Magnetofon” and in particular the short-time scientific missions awarded to P. O.-R. and M. S. The work in Spain was supported by the Regional Government of Madrid through project P2018/NMT-4321 (NANOMAGCOST-CM) and by the Ministry of Science and Innovation MCIN/AEI through projects RTI2018-097895-B-C42 (FUN-SOC) and PID2021-122980OB-C52 (ECLIPSE-ECoSOx) respectively. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 737093 FEMTOTERABYTE and under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 861300 COMRAD as well as the FLAG-ERA JTC2019 Project SOgraphMEM (MINECO PCI2019-111867-2). IMDEA Nanoscience Institute is supported by the “Severo Ochoa” Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D, (MINECO grant SEV-2016-0686). We acknowledge Dr Rubén Guerrero for fruitful discussions. We acknowledge NVIDIA corporation for the donation of the GPU Quadro P6000 used in the micromagnetic simulations. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Dates:	Accepted: 12 September 2022 Published (online): 14 September 2022
Institution:	The University of York
Academic Units:	The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Physics (York)
Depositing User:	Pure (York)
Date Deposited:	02 Nov 2022 16:10
Last Modified:	10 Apr 2025 23:33
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1039/d2nr03903f
Status:	Published online
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1039/d2nr03903f
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:192919

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Description: Non-equilibrium heating path for the laserinduced nucleation of metastable skyrmion lattices

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Non-equilibrium heating path for the laser-induced nucleation of metastable skyrmion lattices

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