Stray field signatures of Néel textured skyrmions in Ir/Fe/Co/Pt multilayer films

The development of technologically relevant skyrmions in multilayer films will require magnetic imaging methods sensitive to their spin structure, and translatable to device configurations. We present recent work [1] in which we use a multipole expansion to quantitatively describe the magnetic field of individual skyrmions in order to analyze low-temperature magnetic force microscopy (MFM) data. By using specific multipole signatures of skyrmions of different spin structure, we establish their Néel texture and helicity in a Ir/Fe/Co/Pt film at 5K. The demonstrated sensitivity to inhomogeneity provides a route for characterizing individual skyrmions in devices, and allows us to quantitatively analyze MFM images [2].

[1] A. Yagil, A. Almoalem, Anjan Soumyanarayanan, Anthony K. C. Tan, M. Raju, C. Panagopoulos, and O. M. Auslaender, arXiv:1705.07608 (2017).
[2] M. Raju, A. Yagil, Anjan Soumyanarayanan, Anthony K. C. Tan, A. Almoalem, O. M. Auslaender, and C. Panagopoulos, arXiv:1708.04084 (2017).