Effective interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and skyrmion stabilization in ferromagnet/paramagnet and ferromagnet/superconductor hybrid systems

Abstract

It is shown that a term in the form of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) contributes to the free energy of a ferromagnetic (FM) film on a paramagnetic (PM) (an FM above the critical temperature, Tc) or superconducting (SC) substrate occurring in the London limit. This contribution results from magnetostatic interaction between the film and substrate under which the substrate affects FM magnetization back via its magnetic field produced by magnetization inhomogeneity in the film. Strikingly, in the FM/PM system this effective DMI stabilizes chiral magnetic textures, e.g., magnetic skyrmions (MSk's) of the Neel-type, which is in contrast to that in the FM/SC one. A strong temperature sensitivity of the effective DMI allows for tuning the coupling between the FM film and PM or SC substrate and thus controlling the MSk radius in FM/PM.