Stability and Dynamics of Skyrmions in Ultrathin Magnetic Nanodisks Under Strain
37 Pages Posted: 26 Sep 2019 Publication Status: Accepted
Abstract
Understanding the switching mechanism of magnetic skyrmions is critical for realizing their potential applications in future spintronic devices. Here we study the thermodynamic stability and dynamics of a Néel skyrmion in an ultrathin magnetic nanodisk under biaxial in-plane strains using a combination of phase-field simulations and analytical theory. We demonstrated the switching of a circular skyrmion to a variety of magnetic configurations, including an out-of-plane monodomain or an in-plane vortex under isotropic strains and to an elliptical skyrmion or a stripe domain under anisotropic strains. We successfully formulated a Lagrangian-mechanics-based model to analytically describe the switching dynamics of a skyrmion. Both our simulations and analytical model revealed that the strain-mediated breathing dynamics of skyrmions lead to a counter-intuitive phenomenon in which a lager strain may lead to slower skyrmion-to-monodomain switching.
Keywords: Phase-field Modeling, Skyrmions, Nanostructures, Lagrangian Mechanics
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