TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparative study of topological Hall effect and skyrmions in NiMnIn and NiMnGa
AU - Zhang, Wenyong
AU - Balasubramanian, Balamurugan
AU - Ullah, Ahsan
AU - Pahari, Rabindra
AU - Li, Xingzhong
AU - Yue, Lanping
AU - Valloppilly, Shah R.
AU - Sokolov, Andrei
AU - Skomski, Ralph
AU - Sellmyer, David J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Author(s).
PY - 2019/10/21
Y1 - 2019/10/21
N2 - A nonequilibrium rapid-quenching method has been used to fabricate NiMnIn and NiMnGa alloys that are chemically and morphologically similar but crystallographically and physically very different. NiMnGa crystallizes in a Ni2In-type hexagonal structure, whereas NiMnIn is a cubic Heusler alloy. Both alloys yield a topological Hall effect contribution corresponding to bubble-type skyrmion spin structures, but it occurs in much lower magnetic fields in NiMnIn as compared to NiMnGa. The effect is unrelated to net Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, which are absent in both alloys due to their inversion-symmetric crystal structures. Based on magnetic-force microscopy, we explain the difference between the two alloys by magnetocrystalline anisotropy and uniaxial and cubic anisotropies yielding full-fledged and reduced topological Hall effects, respectively. Since NiMnIn involves small magnetic fields (0.02-0.3 kOe) at and above room temperature, it is of potential interest in spin electronics.
AB - A nonequilibrium rapid-quenching method has been used to fabricate NiMnIn and NiMnGa alloys that are chemically and morphologically similar but crystallographically and physically very different. NiMnGa crystallizes in a Ni2In-type hexagonal structure, whereas NiMnIn is a cubic Heusler alloy. Both alloys yield a topological Hall effect contribution corresponding to bubble-type skyrmion spin structures, but it occurs in much lower magnetic fields in NiMnIn as compared to NiMnGa. The effect is unrelated to net Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, which are absent in both alloys due to their inversion-symmetric crystal structures. Based on magnetic-force microscopy, we explain the difference between the two alloys by magnetocrystalline anisotropy and uniaxial and cubic anisotropies yielding full-fledged and reduced topological Hall effects, respectively. Since NiMnIn involves small magnetic fields (0.02-0.3 kOe) at and above room temperature, it is of potential interest in spin electronics.
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U2 - 10.1063/1.5120406
DO - 10.1063/1.5120406
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074188380
SN - 0003-6951
VL - 115
JO - Applied Physics Letters
JF - Applied Physics Letters
IS - 17
M1 - 172404
ER -