From Early Theories of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions in Metallic Systems to Today's Novel Roads

Abstract

Since the early 1960's, the discovery of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) helped to explain the physical mechanisms behind certain magnetic phenomena, such as net moment in antiferromagnets, or enhanced anisotropy field from heavy metals impurity in dilute Cu:Mn alloy. Since the researchers unveil the key role that DMI plays in stabilizing chiral Neel type magnetic domain wall and magnetic skyrmions, the studies on DMI have received growing interest. Governed by spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and various types of inversion symmetry breaking (ISB) in magnetic systems, DMI drives the forming of distinct morphologies of magnetic skyrmions. Our aim is to briefly introduce the research history of DMI and its significance in the field of modern spintronics.