R&D: Accurate Manipulation of Single Skyrmion by Probe Ring

Journal of Applied Physics has published an article written by Wei Li, Xiaokun Wang, Kan Zhou, Qiao Huang, Yan Wang, Xuyang Zhang, Baoshan Zhang, Dongming Tang, and Yi Yang, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, People’s Republic of China.

Abstract: “Magnetic skyrmions, a new type of information carriers, are extensively investigated for their potential applications in next-generation data storage and computing. In this work, we propose a mechanical probe ring to implement the accurate manipulation of a single skyrmion by a voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy effect, which is analogous to the manipulation of atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope. Combined with the observation process, we can use the probe to move skyrmions accurately in real time. We investigate the effects of various factors on the performance by micromagnetic simulations in order to give a guide for the design and application of this probe. We prove that this method can manipulate not only ferromagnetic skyrmions but also antiferromagnetic skyrmions, which is significant for the study of physical properties and electronic applications of those particle-like spin textures.“