title: Skyrmion Creation and Manipulation by Nano-Second Current Pulses.
abstract: Easy creation and manipulation of skyrmions is important in skyrmion based devices for data storage and information processing. We show that a nano-second current pulse alone is capable of creating/deleting and manipulating skyrmions in a spin valve with a perpendicularly magnetized free layer and broken chiral symmetry. Interestingly, for an in-plane magnetized fixed layer, the free layer changes from a single domain at zero current to a Neel wall at an intermediate current density. Reverse the current polarity, the Neel wall changes to its image inversion. A properly designed nano-second current pulse, that tends to convert one type of Neel walls to its image inversion, ends up to create a stable skyrmion without assistance of external fields. For a perpendicularly magnetized fixed layer, the skyrmion size can be effectively tuned by a current density.
authors.affiliation: School of Microelectrics and Solid-State Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 610054, China.|Physics Department, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: H Y
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.|HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen 518057, China.
authors.forename: X R
authors.initials: XR
authors.lastname: Wang