Spin disorder control of topological spin texture

Hongrui Zhang; Yu-Tsun Shao; Xiang Chen; Binhua Zhang; Tianye Wang; Fanhao Meng; Kun Xu; Peter Meisenheimer; Xianzhe Chen; Xiaoxi Huang; Piush Behera; Sajid Husain; Tiancong Zhu; Hao Pan; Yanli Jia; Nick Settineri; Nathan Giles-Donovan; Zehao He; Andreas Scholl; Alpha N'Diaye; Padraic Shafer; Archana Raja; Changsong Xu; Lane W Martin; Michael F Crommie; Jie Yao; Ziqiang Qiu; Arun Majumdar; Laurent Bellaiche; David A Muller; Robert J Birgeneau; Ramamoorthy Ramesh

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47715-5

Spin disorder control of topological spin texture

Nat Commun. 2024 May 7;15(1):3828. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47715-5.

Authors

Hongrui Zhang^#^{1

2}, Yu-Tsun Shao^#^{3

4}, Xiang Chen^#^{5

6

7}, Binhua Zhang^#^{8

9}, Tianye Wang¹⁰, Fanhao Meng^{11

12}, Kun Xu¹³, Peter Meisenheimer¹¹, Xianzhe Chen^{11

12}, Xiaoxi Huang¹¹, Piush Behera¹¹, Sajid Husain^{11

12}, Tiancong Zhu^{12

10}, Hao Pan¹¹, Yanli Jia¹¹, Nick Settineri¹², Nathan Giles-Donovan¹⁰, Zehao He^{12

10}, Andreas Scholl¹⁴, Alpha N'Diaye¹⁴, Padraic Shafer¹⁴, Archana Raja¹⁵, Changsong Xu^{16

17}, Lane W Martin^{11

12

18

19

20

21}, Michael F Crommie^{12

10}, Jie Yao^{11

12}, Ziqiang Qiu¹⁰, Arun Majumdar¹³, Laurent Bellaiche²², David A Muller^{4

23}, Robert J Birgeneau^{12

10}, Ramamoorthy Ramesh^{24

25

26

27

28

29}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. hongruizhang@berkeley.edu.
² Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. hongruizhang@berkeley.edu.
³ Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA.
⁴ School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA.
⁵ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. chenx889@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. chenx889@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
⁷ Center for Neutron Science and Technology, School of Physics, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510275, China. chenx889@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
⁸ Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences (Ministry of Education), Institute of Computational Physical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
⁹ Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute, Shanghai, 200030, China.
¹⁰ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
¹¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
¹² Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
¹³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁴ Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
¹⁵ Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
¹⁶ Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences (Ministry of Education), Institute of Computational Physical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. csxu@fudan.edu.cn.
¹⁷ Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute, Shanghai, 200030, China. csxu@fudan.edu.cn.
¹⁸ Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
²⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
²¹ Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
²² Physics Department and Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA.
²³ Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA.
²⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. rramesh@berkeley.edu.
²⁵ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. rramesh@berkeley.edu.
²⁶ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. rramesh@berkeley.edu.
²⁷ Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA. rramesh@berkeley.edu.
²⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA. rramesh@berkeley.edu.
²⁹ Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA. rramesh@berkeley.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Stabilization of topological spin textures in layered magnets has the potential to drive the development of advanced low-dimensional spintronics devices. However, achieving reliable and flexible manipulation of the topological spin textures beyond skyrmion in a two-dimensional magnet system remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate the introduction of magnetic iron atoms between the van der Waals gap of a layered magnet, Fe₃GaTe₂, to modify local anisotropic magnetic interactions. Consequently, we present direct observations of the order-disorder skyrmion lattices transition. In addition, non-trivial topological solitons, such as skyrmioniums and skyrmion bags, are realized at room temperature. Our work highlights the influence of random spin control of non-trivial topological spin textures.

Abstract

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