Seminar: Exploring Chiral Magnetism: Neutron & X-ray Scattering Meets Spin Dynamics
- Date
- 6 October 2025, 13:15–14:00
- Location
- Ångström Laboratory, Å4101 and zoom: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/62686583992
- Type
- Seminar
- Lecturer
- Annika Stellhorn
- Organiser
- Division of Materials Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy
- Contact person
- Max Wolff
Chiral magnetic structures in superconductor/ferromagnet (S/F) heterostructures are of great interest for spintronics, where they may generate long-range supercurrents, impact superconducting critical temperatures, and stabilize topological states [1,2]. In this work, we investigate thick L10-FePd/Nb films with strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, a nominally centrosymmetric system that unexpectedly exhibits chiral domain walls [3]. Using polarization-analyzed grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering (PA-GISANS) and magnetic X-ray scattering, we obtain experimental evidence for preferred chirality in FePd domain walls. To identify its microscopic origin, we complement experiments with a multiscale computational approach by using density functional theory & atomistic spin-dynamics simulations [4], to capture the impact of atomic defects, intermixing, and disorder on Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interactions. Our combined scattering and simulation results highlight how bulk disorder and interface effects cooperate in stabilizing chiral textures, with implications for controlling spin states in superconducting spintronic devices.
[1] A. Stellhorn et al., New Journal of Physics 22, 093001 (2020).
[2] M. Garnier et al., Comms. Phys. 2, 126 (2019).
[3] A. Stellhorn, Ph.D. thesis, RWTH Aachen University (2021).
[4] P. C. Carvalho et al., Nano Lett. 23, 4854−4861 (2023).