Artificial helical nanomagnets

Fraerman, A. A.; Gribkov, B. A.; Gusev, S. A.; Hjorvarsson, B.; Klimov, A. Yu.; Mironov, V. L.; Nikitushkin, D. S.; Rogov, V. V.; Vdovichev, S. N.; Zabel, H.

Artificial helical nanomagnets

Authors

Description

We demonstrate the existence of a helical state in patterned multilayer nanomagnets. The artificial helimagnets consist of a stack of single domain ferromagnetic disks separated by insulating nonmagnetic spacers. The spiral state is shown to originate from the magnetostatic interaction between nearest and next nearest neighbouring single-domain disks in the stack. Since the magnetostatic interaction for such disks is rather strong, the helical state should be stable at room temperature. The helimagnets were fabricated from a [Co/Si]*3 multilayer using electron beam lithography. The helical state was confirmed by a magnetic stray field analysis using magnetic force microscopy.
6 pages, 4 figures