Soliton-like magnetic domain wall motion induced by the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Topological defects such as magnetic solitons, vortices and skyrmions have started to play an important role in modern magnetism because of their extraordinary stability, which can be exploited in the production of memory devices. Recently, a type of antisymmetric exchange interaction, namely the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI; refs,), has been uncovered and found to influence the formation of topological defects. Exploring how the DMI affects the dynamics of topological defects is therefore an important task. Here we investigate the dynamics of the magnetic domain wall (DW) under a DMI by developing a real time DW detection scheme. For a weak DMI, the DW velocity increases with the external field and reaches a peak velocity at a threshold field, beyond which it abruptly decreases. For a strong DMI, on the other hand, the velocity reduction is completely suppressed and the peak velocity is maintained constant even far above the threshold field. Such a distinct trend of the velocity can be explained in terms of a magnetic soliton, the topology of which is protected during its motion. Our results therefore shed light on the physics of dynamic topological defects, which paves the way for future work in topology-based memory applications. © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited.