title: Additive interfacial chiral interaction in multilayers for stabilization of small individual skyrmions at room temperature.
abstract: Facing the ever-growing demand for data storage will most probably require a new paradigm. Nanoscale magnetic skyrmions are anticipated to solve this issue as they are arguably the smallest spin textures in magnetic thin ﬁlms in nature. We designed cobalt-based multilayered thin ﬁlms in which the cobalt layer is sandwiched between two heavy metals and so provides additive interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMIs), which reach a value close to 2 mJ m(-2) in the case of the Ir|Co|Pt asymmetric multilayers. Using a magnetization-sensitive scanning X-ray transmission microscopy technique, we imaged small magnetic domains at very low fields in these multilayers. The study of their behaviour in a perpendicular magnetic ﬁeld allows us to conclude that they are actually magnetic skyrmions stabilized by the large DMI. This discovery of stable sub-100 nm individual skyrmions at room temperature in a technologically relevant material opens the way for device applications in the near future.
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Moreau-Luchaire
authors.affiliation: Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232 Villigen, Switzerland.|School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mouta S
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: N
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7745-7282
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Reyren
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sampaio
authors.affiliation: Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232 Villigen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: C A F
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Vaz
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Van Horne
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bouzehouane
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Deranlot
authors.affiliation: Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232 Villigen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: P
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5252-6392
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Warnicke
authors.affiliation: Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232 Villigen, Switzerland.|Laboratory for Mesoscopic Systems, Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wohlhüter
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: J-M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: George
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weigand
authors.affiliation: Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232 Villigen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: J
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2071-6896
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Raabe
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Cros
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91767, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fert