Imaging chiral spin textures with spin-polarized low energy electron microscopy

Chirality in magnetic materials is fundamentally interesting holds potential for logic and memory applications [1-4]. Using spin-polarized low-energy electron microscopy, we recently observed chiral N\'{e}el walls in thin films [5]. We developed ways to tailor the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which drives the chirality, by interface engineering [6], and we found that N\'{e}el- and Bloch- chirality type can be tuned in the presence of uniaxial strain. This work was done in collaboration with G. Chen, A.T.N'diaye, T.P.Ma, A.Mascaraque, C.Won, Z.Q.Qiu, Y.Z.Wu. \\[4pt] [1] M. Bode~et al., \textit{Nature}~\textbf{447}, 190 (2007).\\[0pt] [2] X.Z. Yu, et al.,~\textit{Nature}~\textbf{465}, 901 (2010). \\[0pt] [3] A. Fert et al., \textit{Nature Nanotechnol}. \textbf{8}, 152 (2013).\\[0pt] [4] N. Nagaosa et al. \textit{Nature Nanotechnol}. \textbf{8}, 899 (2013).\\[0pt] [5] G. Chen, et al. \textit{Phys. Rev. Lett}. \textbf{110}, 177204 (2013).\\[0pt] [6] G. Chen, et al. \textit{Nat. Commun}. \textbf{4}, 2671 (2013).