title: Tailoring the chiral magnetic interaction between two individual atoms.
abstract: Chiral magnets are a promising route towards dense magnetic storage technology due to their inherent nano-scale dimensions and energy efficient properties. Engineering chiral magnets requires atomic-level control of the magnetic exchange interactions, including the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which defines a rotational sense for the magnetization of two coupled magnetic moments. Here we show that the indirect conduction electron-mediated Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction between two individual magnetic atoms on a metallic surface can be manipulated by changing the interatomic distance with the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope. We quantify this interaction by comparing our measurements to a quantum magnetic model and ab-initio calculations yielding a map of the chiral ground states of pairs of atoms depending on the interatomic separation. The map enables tailoring the chirality of the magnetization in dilute atomic-scale magnets.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hamburg University, 20355 Hamburg, Germany.|Institute for Molecules and Materials, Radboud University, 6525AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Khajetoorians
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hamburg University, 20355 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Steinbrecher
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6800-4129
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ternes
authors.affiliation: Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich &JARA, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bouhassoune
authors.affiliation: Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich &JARA, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: dos Santos Dias
authors.affiliation: Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich &JARA, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2573-2841
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lounis
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hamburg University, 20355 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wiebe
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hamburg University, 20355 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wiesendanger