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Emergence of Sizeable Interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction at Cobalt/Fullerene Interface

Esita Pandey, Brindaban Ojha, and Subhankar Bedanta*

  • Laboratory for Nanomagnetism and Magnetic Materials (LNMM), School of Physical Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), An OCC of Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI), Jatni 752050, Odisha, India

  • *sbedanta@niser.ac.in

Phys. Rev. Applied 19, 044013 – Published 5 April, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.19.044013

Abstract

The interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI) originating from a heavy-metal/ferromagnet (FM) interface plays a crucial role in stabilizing chiral spin textures in magnetic multilayers. Recently, graphene based on the low-spin-orbit-coupling (SOC) element carbon (C) has shown a significant iDMI owing to the Rashba SOC when deposited on top of Co. A similar enhanced SOC has been reported earlier for other C allotropes, namely fullerene (C60) and carbon nanotubes, and a sizeable DMI can be expected to emerge from them. In this context, we elucidate the magnetization-reversal mechanism, the domain-wall (DW) dynamics, and the strength of the iDMI in a Pd(4.0nm)/Co(0.5nm)/C60(tC60)/Pd(2.0nm) system with varying tC60. The field-induced DW velocity measured in the creep region shows a DW velocity 2 orders of magnitude higher for a sample with 1.6 nm of C60, due to a lower depinning field and spin-dependent hybridization at the Co/C60 interface. Further, DMI measurements performed by use of the asymmetric DW expansion method exhibit a systematic increase in the iDMI from 0.07 to 0.46mJ/m2 with an increase in tC60. Such an enhanced iDMI turns an achiral Bloch wall into a chiral Néel wall. The emergence of a finite DMI (DCo/C600.11mJ/m2) from the Co/C60 interface is particularly encouraging for the use of C-based materials in chiral-DW-based device applications.

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