- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review B

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Pathways to bubble and skyrmion lattice formation in Fe/Gd multilayers

Tim Titze1, Sabri Koraltan2,3,4, Mailin Matthies1, Timo Schmidt5, Dieter Suess3, Manfred Albrecht5, Stefan Mathias1,6,*, and Daniel Steil1,†

  • *Contact author: smathias@uni-goettingen.de
  • †Contact author: dsteil@gwdg.de
PDF

Phys. Rev. B 112, 064413 – Published 7 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/wgrf-cw1t

Abstract

The creation and control of magnetic spin textures is of great interest in fundamental research and future device-oriented applications. Fe/Gd multilayers host a rich variety of magnetic textures including topologically trivial type-2 bubbles and topologically protected chiral type-1 bubbles, also known as dipolar-stabilized skyrmions. Using time-resolved Kerr spectroscopy, we highlight how various control strategies, including temperature, out-of-plane magnetic fields and femtosecond light excitation, can be used to create such textures via different pathways. We find that varying the magnetic field for constant temperature leads to a different (H,T) phase diagram of magnetic textures than moving along a temperature trajectory for constant magnetic field. Micromagnetic simulations corroborate this finding and allow us to visualize the different paths taken. Furthermore, we show that the creation of bubbles and skyrmions in this material via impulsive light excitation is not solely governed by temperature-driven processes, since bubbles and skyrmions can be stabilized in parts of the (H,T) phase diagram, where neither the constant temperature nor the constant magnetic field trajectory predict their existence. Using this phase diagram, we reason why bubble and skyrmion creation in this particular system is only possible from the stripe domain state. Our observations provide a versatile toolkit for tailoring the creation of magnetic spin textures in Fe/Gd multilayers.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (60)

  1. A. V. Chumak, V. I. Vasyuchka, A. A. Serga, and B. Hillebrands, Magnon spintronics, Nat. Phys. 11, 453 (2015).
  2. G. Finocchio, F. Büttner, R. Tomasello, M. Carpentieri, and M. Kläui, Magnetic skyrmions: From fundamental to applications, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 49, 423001 (2016).
  3. A. Fert, N. Reyren, and V. Cros, Magnetic skyrmions: Advances in physics and potential applications, Nat. Rev. Mater. 2, 17031 (2017).
  4. A. Barman et al., The 2021 Magnonics Roadmap, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 33, 413001 (2021).
  5. H. Yu, J. Xiao, and H. Schultheiss, Magnetic texture based magnonics, Phys. Rep. 905, 1 (2021).
  6. A. V. Chumak et al., Advances in magnetics roadmap on spin-wave computing, IEEE Trans. Magn. 58, 1 (2022).
  7. D. Petti, S. Tacchi, and E. Albisetti, Review on magnonics with engineered spin textures, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 55, 293003 (2022).
  8. Y. Huang, W. Kang, X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao, Magnetic skyrmion-based synaptic devices, Nanotechnology 28, 08LT02 (2017).
  9. K. M. Song, J.-S. Jeong, B. Pan, X. Zhang, J. Xia, S. Cha, T.-E. Park, K. Kim, S. Finizio, J. Raabe et al., Skyrmion-based artificial synapses for neuromorphic computing, Nat. Electron. 3, 148 (2020).
  10. S. Li, W. Kang, X. Zhang, T. Nie, Y. Zhou, K. L. Wang, and W. Zhao, Magnetic skyrmions for unconventional computing, Mater. Horiz. 8, 854 (2021).
  11. T. Yokouchi, S. Sugimoto, B. Rana, S. Seki, N. Ogawa, Y. Shiomi, S. Kasai, and Y. Otani, Pattern recognition with neuromorphic computing using magnetic field–induced dynamics of skyrmions, Sci. Adv. 8, eabq5652 (2022).
  12. S. A. Montoya, S. Couture, J. J. Chess, J. C. T. Lee, N. Kent, D. Henze, S. K. Sinha, M.-Y. Im, S. D. Kevan, P. Fischer, B. J. McMorran, V. Lomakin, S. Roy, and E. E. Fullerton, Tailoring magnetic energies to form dipole skyrmions and skyrmion lattices, Phys. Rev. B 95, 024415 (2017).
  13. S. A. Montoya, S. Couture, J. J. Chess, J. C. T. Lee, N. Kent, M.-Y. Im, S. D. Kevan, P. Fischer, B. J. McMorran, S. Roy, V. Lomakin, and E. E. Fullerton, Resonant properties of dipole skyrmions in amorphous Fe/Gd multilayers, Phys. Rev. B 95, 224405 (2017).
  14. P. Grundy and R. Tebble, Lorentz electron microscopy, Adv. Phys. 17, 153 (1968).
  15. A. K. Petford-Long and M. De Graef, Lorentz microscopy, in Characterization of Materials (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2012), pp. 1–15.
  16. A. R. McCray, T. Cote, Y. Li, A. K. Petford-Long, and C. Phatak, Understanding complex magnetic spin textures with simulation-assisted lorentz transmission electron microscopy, Phys. Rev. Appl. 15, 044025 (2021).
  17. P. Fischer, T. Eimüller, G. Schütz, P. Guttmann, G. Schmahl, K. Pruegl, and G. Bayreuther, Imaging of magnetic domains by transmission x-ray microscopy, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 31, 649 (1998).
  18. P. Fischer, X-ray imaging of magnetic structures, IEEE Trans. Magn. 51, 1 (2015).
  19. N. Ogawa, S. Seki, and Y. Tokura, Ultrafast optical excitation of magnetic skyrmions, Sci. Rep. 5, 9552 (2015).
  20. P. Padmanabhan, F. Sekiguchi, R. B. Versteeg, E. Slivina, V. Tsurkan, S. Bordács, I. Kézsmárki, and P. H. M. van Loosdrecht, Optically driven collective spin excitations and magnetization dynamics in the Néel-type skyrmion host GaV4S8, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 107203 (2019).
  21. F. Sekiguchi, K. Budzinauskas, P. Padmanabhan, R. B. Versteeg, V. Tsurkan, I. Kézsmárki, F. Foggetti, S. Artyukhin, and P. H. M. van Loosdrecht, Slowdown of photoexcited spin dynamics in the non-collinear spin-ordered phases in skyrmion host GaV4S8, Nat. Commun. 13, 3212 (2022).
  22. J. Kalin, S. Sievers, H. Füser, H. W. Schumacher, M. Bieler, F. García-Sánchez, A. Bauer, and C. Pfleiderer, Optically excited spin dynamics of thermally metastable skyrmions in Fe0.75Co0.25Si, Phys. Rev. B 106, 054430 (2022).
  23. T. Titze, S. Koraltan, T. Schmidt, M. Möller, F. Bruckner, C. Abert, D. Suess, C. Ropers, D. Steil, M. Albrecht, and S. Mathias, Laser-induced real-space topology control of spin wave resonances, Adv. Funct. Mater. 34, 2313619 (2024).
  24. J. Kalin, S. Sievers, H. Schumacher, R. Abram, H. Füser, M. Bieler, D. Kalin, A. Bauer, and C. Pfleiderer, Optical creation and annihilation of skyrmion patches in a chiral magnet, Phys. Rev. Appl. 21, 034065 (2024).
  25. M. Heigl, S. Koraltan, M. Vaňatka, R. Kraft, C. Abert, C. Vogler, A. Semisalova, P. Che, A. Ullrich, T. Schmidt, J. Hintermayr, D. Grundler, M. Farle, M. Urbánek, D. Suess, and M. Albrecht, Dipolar-stabilized first and second-order antiskyrmions in ferrimagnetic multilayers, Nat. Commun. 12, 2611 (2021).
  26. T. Titze, S. Koraltan, T. Schmidt, D. Suess, M. Albrecht, S. Mathias, and D. Steil, All-optical control of bubble and skyrmion breathing, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 156701 (2024).
  27. Note that the ultrafast demagnetization on the subpicosecond timescale shows no dependence on magnetic spin texture, as demonstrated in Ref. [23].
  28. F. Bruckner, S. Koraltan, C. Abert, and D. Suess, magnum.np: A PyTorch based GPU enhanced finite difference micromagnetic simulation framework for high level development and inverse design, Sci. Rep. 13, 12054 (2023).
  29. B. Koopmans, M. van Kampen, J. T. Kohlhepp, and W. J. M. de Jonge, Ultrafast magneto-optics in nickel: Magnetism or optics?, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 844 (2000).
  30. I. Razdolski, A. Alekhin, U. Martens, D. Bürstel, D. Diesing, M. Münzenberg, U. Bovensiepen, and A. Melnikov, Analysis of the time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect for ultrafast magnetization dynamics in ferromagnetic thin films, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 29, 174002 (2017).
  31. E. Beaurepaire, J.-C. Merle, A. Daunois, and J.-Y. Bigot, Ultrafast spin dynamics in ferromagnetic nickel, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4250 (1996).
  32. M. van Kampen, C. Jozsa, J. T. Kohlhepp, P. LeClair, L. Lagae, W. J. M. de Jonge, and B. Koopmans, All-optical probe of coherent spin waves, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 227201 (2002).
  33. U. Ebels, L. Buda, K. Ounadjela, and P. E. Wigen, Ferromagnetic resonance excitation of two-dimensional wall structures in magnetic stripe domains, Phys. Rev. B 63, 174437 (2001).
  34. R. D. Desautels, L. DeBeer-Schmitt, S. A. Montoya, J. A. Borchers, S.-G. Je, N. Tang, M.-Y. Im, M. R. Fitzsimmons, E. E. Fullerton, and D. A. Gilbert, Realization of ordered magnetic skyrmions in thin films at ambient conditions, Phys. Rev. Mater. 3, 104406 (2019).
  35. J. Leliaert, J. Mulkers, J. De Clercq, A. Coene, M. Dvornik, and B. Van Waeyenberge, Adaptively time stepping the stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation at nonzero temperature: Implementation and validation in MuMax3, AIP Adv. 7, 125010 (2017).
  36. G. Jocher, A. Chaurasia, and J. Qin, Ultralytics YOLO, Computer Software, Version 8.0.0 (2023), https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics.
  37. M. Uchida, Y. Onose, Y. Matsui, and Y. Tokura, Real-space observation of helical spin order, Science 311, 359 (2006).
  38. X. Z. Yu, N. Kanazawa, Y. Onose, K. Kimoto, W. Z. Zhang, S. Ishiwata, Y. Matsui, and Y. Tokura, Near room-temperature formation of a skyrmion crystal in thin-films of the helimagnet FeGe, Nat. Mater. 10, 106 (2011).
  39. A. Tonomura, X. Yu, K. Yanagisawa, T. Matsuda, Y. Onose, N. Kanazawa, H. S. Park, and Y. Tokura, Real-space observation of skyrmion lattice in helimagnet MnSi thin samples, Nano Lett. 12, 1673 (2012).
  40. F. Zheng, N. S. Kiselev, F. N. Rybakov, L. Yang, W. Shi, S. Blügel, and R. E. Dunin-Borkowski, Hopfion rings in a cubic chiral magnet, Nature 623, 718 (2023).
  41. G. Berruto, I. Madan, Y. Murooka, G. M. Vanacore, E. Pomarico, J. Rajeswari, R. Lamb, P. Huang, A. J. Kruchkov, Y. Togawa, T. LaGrange, D. McGrouther, H. M. Rønnow, and F. Carbone, Laser-induced skyrmion writing and erasing in an ultrafast cryo-lorentz transmission electron microscope, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 117201 (2018).
  42. W. Koshibae and N. Nagaosa, Creation of skyrmions and antiskyrmions by local heating, Nat. Commun. 5, 5148 (2014).
  43. F. Büttner et al., Observation of fluctuation-mediated picosecond nucleation of a topological phase, Nat. Mater. 20, 30 (2021).
  44. J. Jena, B. Göbel, T. Ma, V. Kumar, R. Saha, I. Mertig, C. Felser, and S. S. P. Parkin, Elliptical Bloch skyrmion chiral twins in an antiskyrmion system, Nat. Commun. 11, 1115 (2020).
  45. L. Powalla, M. T. Birch, K. Litzius, S. Wintz, F. S. Yasin, L. A. Turnbull, F. Schulz, D. A. Mayoh, G. Balakrishnan, M. Weigand, X. Yu, K. Kern, G. Schütz, and M. Burghard, Seeding and emergence of composite skyrmions in a van der Waals magnet, Adv. Mater. 35, 2208930 (2023).
  46. J. Jena, S. Koraltan, F. Bruckner, K. Holst, M. Tangi, C. Abert, C. Felser, D. Suess, and S. S. Parkin, Topological phase transformation and collapse dynamics of spin textures in a non-centrosymmetric D2d system, Adv. Funct. Mater. 34, 2403358 (2024).
  47. M. Khela, M. Dabrowski, S. Khan, P. S. Keatley, I. Verzhbitskiy, G. Eda, R. J. Hicken, H. Kurebayashi, and E. J. G. Santos, Laser-induced topological spin switching in a 2D van der Waals magnet, Nat. Commun. 14, 1378 (2023).
  48. B. Truc, A. A. Sapozhnik, P. Tengdin, E. Viñas Boström, T. Schönenberger, S. Gargiulo, I. Madan, T. LaGrange, A. Magrez, C. Verdozzi, A. Rubio, H. M. Rønnow, and F. Carbone, Light-induced metastable hidden skyrmion phase in the Mott insulator Cu2OSeO3, Adv. Mater. 35, 2304197 (2023).
  49. Y. Li, L. Pierobon, M. Charilaou, H.-B. Braun, N. R. Walet, J. F. Löffler, J. J. Miles, and C. Moutafis, Tunable terahertz oscillation arising from bloch-point dynamics in chiral magnets, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 033006 (2020).
  50. M. T. Birch, D. Cortés-Ortuño, N. D. Khanh, S. Seki, A. Štefančič, G. Balakrishnan, Y. Tokura, and P. D. Hatton, Topological defect-mediated skyrmion annihilation in three dimensions, Commun. Phys. 4, 175 (2021).
  51. S. Zhang, J. Zhang, Q. Zhang, C. Barton, V. Neu, Y. Zhao, Z. Hou, Y. Wen, C. Gong, O. Kazakova, W. Wang, Y. Peng, D. A. Garanin, E. M. Chudnovsky, and X. Zhang, Direct writing of room temperature and zero field skyrmion lattices by a scanning local magnetic field, Appl. Phys. Lett. 112, 132405 (2018).
  52. H. Liu, C. Zhang, C. Liu, A. Chen, D. Zheng, Y. Peng, J. Wei, Q. Liu, J. Wang, S. Zhang, and X. Zhang, Writing and deleting skyrmions by electron beam in van der Waals ferromagnet Fe3GeTe2, Appl. Phys. Lett. 124, 053102 (2024).
  53. X. Wang, M. Li, B. Li, Y. Li, Y. Li, F. Zheng, and L. Liu, Efficient generation and deterministic annihilation of a single skyrmion via pure localized heating, J. Appl. Phys. 135, 143902 (2024).
  54. S. Zhang, J. Zhang, Y. Wen, E. M. Chudnovsky, and X. Zhang, Creation of a thermally assisted skyrmion lattice in Pt/Co/Ta multilayer films, Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 192403 (2018).
  55. T. Titze, S. Koraltan, M. Matthies, T. Schmidt, D. Suess, M. Albrecht, S. Mathias, and D. Steil, Replication data for: Pathways to bubble and skyrmion lattice formation in Fe/Gd multilayers, V1 (GRO.data, 2025), https://doi.org/10.25625/WHO995.
  56. A. Kirilyuk, A. V. Kimel, and T. Rasing, Ultrafast optical manipulation of magnetic order, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 2731 (2010).
  57. P. Scheid, Q. Remy, S. Lebègue, G. Malinowski, and S. Mangin, Light induced ultrafast magnetization dynamics in metallic compounds, J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 560, 169596 (2022).
  58. A. Melnikov, H. Prima-Garcia, M. Lisowski, T. Gießel, R. Weber, R. Schmidt, C. Gahl, N. M. Bulgakova, U. Bovensiepen, and M. Weinelt, Nonequilibrium magnetization dynamics of gadolinium studied by magnetic linear dichroism in time-resolved 4f core-level photoemission, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 107202 (2008).
  59. B. Frietsch, A. Donges, R. Carley, M. Teichmann, J. Bowlan, K. Döbrich, K. Carva, D. Legut, P. M. Oppeneer, U. Nowak, and M. Weinelt, The role of ultrafast magnon generation in the magnetization dynamics of rare-earth metals, Sci. Adv. 6, eabb1601 (2020).
  60. N. Imamura and Y. Mimura, Magnetic Kerr rotation and sublattice iron moment in Gd-Fe amorphous alloy films, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 41, 1067 (1976).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. B 112, 064413– Published 7 August, 2025
  • Received 31 January 2025
  • Revised 9 May 2025
  • Accepted 9 July 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation