Survival of skyrmions along granular racetracks at room temperature.

Skyrmions can be envisioned as bits of information that can be transported along nanoracetracks. However, temperature, defects, and/or granularity can produce diffusion, pinning, and, in general, modification in their dynamics. These effects may cause undesired errors in information transport. We present simulations of a realistic system where both the (room) temperature and sample granularity are taken into account. Key feasibility magnitudes, such as the success probability of a skyrmion traveling a given distance along the racetrack, are calculated. The results are evaluated in terms of the eventual loss of skyrmions by pinning, destruction at the edges, or excessive delay due to granularity. The model proposed is based on the Fokker-Planck equation resulting from Thiele's rigid model for skyrmions. The results could serve to establish error detection criteria and, in general, to discern the dynamics of skyrmions in realistic situations.

Accelerating, guiding, and compressing skyrmions by defect rails.

Magnetic skyrmions are promising candidates as information carriers in spintronic devices. The transport of individual skyrmions in a fast and controlled way is a key issue in this field. Here we introduce a platform for accelerating, guiding and compressing skyrmions along predefined paths. The guiding mechanism is based on two parallel line defects (rails), one attractive and the other repulsive. Numerical simulations, using parameters from state-of-the-art experiments, show that the speed of the skyrmions along the rails can be increased up to an order of magnitude with respect to the non-defect case whereas the distance between rails can be as small as the initial radius of the skyrmions. In this way, the flux of information that can be coded and transported with magnetic skyrmions could be significantly increased.

Depairing Current at High Magnetic Fields in Vortex-Free High-Temperature Superconducting Nanowires.

Superconductors are essential in many present and future technologies, from large-scale devices for medical imaging, accelerators, or fusion experiments to ultra-low-power superconducting electronics. However, their potential applicability, and particularly that of high-temperature superconductors (HTS), is severely affected by limited performances at large magnetic fields and high temperatures, where their use is most needed. One of the main reasons for these limitations is the presence of quantized vortices, whose movements result in losses, internal noise, and reduced performances. The conventional strategy to overcome the flow of vortices is to pin them along artificial defects. Here, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that critical-current density in high-temperature superconductors can reach unprecedented high values at high fields and temperatures by preventing vortex entry. By tailoring the geometry, that is, reducing the width, W, of nanowire-patterned HTS films, the range of the Meissner state, for which no vortices are present, is extended up to very large applied field values, on the order of ∼1 T. Current densities on the order of the depairing current can be sustained under high fields for a wide range of temperatures. Results may be relevant both for devising new conductors carrying depairing-current values at high temperatures and large magnetic fields and for reducing flux noise in sensors and quantum systems.

Enhancing the sensitivity of magnetic sensors by 3D metamaterial shells.

Magnetic sensors are key elements in our interconnected smart society. Their sensitivity becomes essential for many applications in fields such as biomedicine, computer memories, geophysics, or space exploration. Here we present a universal way of increasing the sensitivity of magnetic sensors by surrounding them with a spherical metamaterial shell with specially designed anisotropic magnetic properties. We analytically demonstrate that the magnetic field in the sensing area is enhanced by our metamaterial shell by a known factor that depends on the shell radii ratio. When the applied field is non-uniform, as for dipolar magnetic field sources, field gradient is increased as well. A proof-of-concept experimental realization confirms the theoretical predictions. The metamaterial shell is also shown to concentrate time-dependent magnetic fields upto frequencies of 100 kHz.

Encoding Magnetic States in Monopole-Like Configurations Using Superconducting Dots.

A large manifold of nontrivial spin textures, including the stabilization of monopole-like fields, are generated by using a completely new and versatile approach based on the combination of superconductivity and magnetism. Robust, stable, and easily controllable complex spin structures are encoded, modified, and annihilated in a continuous magnetic thin film by defining a variety of magnetic states in superconducting dots.

Tunable High-Field Magnetization in Strongly Exchange-Coupled Freestanding Co/CoO Core/Shell Coaxial Nanowires.

The exchange bias properties of Co/CoO coaxial core/shell nanowires were investigated with cooling and applied fields perpendicular to the wire axis. This configuration leads to unexpected exchange-bias effects. First, the magnetization value at high fields is found to depend on the field-cooling conditions. This effect arises from the competition between the magnetic anisotropy and the Zeeman energies for cooling fields perpendicular to the wire axis. This allows imprinting predefined magnetization states to the antiferromagnetic (AFM) shell, as corroborated by micromagnetic simulations. Second, the system exhibits a high-field magnetic irreversibility, leading to open hysteresis loops attributed to the AFM easy axis reorientation during the reversal (effect similar to athermal training). A distinct way to manipulate the high-field magnetization in exchange-biased systems, beyond the archetypical effects, was thus experimentally and theoretically demonstrated.

Quasistatic Metamaterials: Magnetic Coupling Enhancement by Effective Space Cancellation.

A novel and broadly applicable way to increase magnetic coupling between distant circuits in the quasistatic regime is introduced. It is shown how the use of magnetic metamaterials enhances the magnetic coupling between emitting and receiving coils. Results are experimentally demonstrated by measuring a boost on the efficiency of the wireless transmission of power between distant circuits.

Tailoring Staircase-like Hysteresis Loops in Electrodeposited Trisegmented Magnetic Nanowires: a Strategy toward Minimization of Interwire Interactions.

A new strategy to minimize magnetic interactions between nanowires (NWs) dispersed in a fluid is proposed. Such a strategy consists of preparing trisegmented NWs containing two antiparallel ferromagnetic segments with dissimilar coercivity separated by a nonmagnetic spacer. The trisegmented NWs exhibit a staircase-like hysteresis loop with tunable shape that depends on the relative length of the soft- and hard-magnetic segments and the respective values of saturation magnetization. Such NWs are prepared by electrodepositing CoPt/Cu/Ni in a polycarbonate (PC) membrane. The antiparallel alignment is set by applying suitable magnetic fields while the NWs are still embedded in the PC membrane. Analytic calculations are used to demonstrate that the interaction magnetic energy from fully compensated trisegmented NWs with antiparallel alignment is reduced compared to a single-component NW with the same length or the trisegmented NWs with the two ferromagnetic counterparts parallel to each other. The proposed approach is appealing for the use of magnetic NWs in certain biological or catalytic applications where the aggregation of NWs is detrimental for optimized performance.

A Magnetic Wormhole.

Wormholes are fascinating cosmological objects that can connect two distant regions of the universe. Because of their intriguing nature, constructing a wormhole in a lab seems a formidable task. A theoretical proposal by Greenleaf et al. presented a strategy to build a wormhole for electromagnetic waves. Based on metamaterials, it could allow electromagnetic wave propagation between two points in space through an invisible tunnel. However, an actual realization has not been possible until now. Here we construct and experimentally demonstrate a magnetostatic wormhole. Using magnetic metamaterials and metasurfaces, our wormhole transfers the magnetic field from one point in space to another through a path that is magnetically undetectable. We experimentally show that the magnetic field from a source at one end of the wormhole appears at the other end as an isolated magnetic monopolar field, creating the illusion of a magnetic field propagating through a tunnel outside the 3D space. Practical applications of the results can be envisaged, including medical techniques based on magnetism.

A new reversal mode in exchange coupled antiferromagnetic/ferromagnetic disks: distorted viscous vortex.

Magnetic vortices have generated intense interest in recent years due to their unique reversal mechanisms, fascinating topological properties, and exciting potential applications. In addition, the exchange coupling of magnetic vortices to antiferromagnets has also been shown to lead to a range of novel phenomena and functionalities. Here we report a new magnetization reversal mode of magnetic vortices in exchange coupled Ir20Mn80/Fe20Ni80 microdots: distorted viscous vortex reversal. In contrast to the previously known or proposed reversal modes, the vortex is distorted close to the interface and viscously dragged due to the uncompensated spins of a thin antiferromagnet, which leads to unexpected asymmetries in the annihilation and nucleation fields. These results provide a deeper understanding of the physics of exchange coupled vortices and may also have important implications for applications involving exchange coupled nanostructures.

Experimental realization of a magnetic cloak.

Invisibility to electromagnetic fields has become an exciting theoretical possibility. However, the experimental realization of electromagnetic cloaks has only been achieved starting from simplified approaches (for instance, based on ray approximation, canceling only some terms of the scattering fields, or hiding a bulge in a plane instead of an object in free space). Here, we demonstrate, directly from Maxwell equations, that a specially designed cylindrical superconductor-ferromagnetic bilayer can exactly cloak uniform static magnetic fields, and we experimentally confirmed this effect in an actual setup.

Magnetic energy harvesting and concentration at a distance by transformation optics.

Based on transformation optics, we introduce a magnetic shell with which one can harvest magnetic energy and distribute it as desired in space with unprecedented efficiency at an arbitrary scale. It allows a very large concentration of magnetic energy in a free space region, which can be used for increasing the sensitivity of magnetic sensors, and the transfer of magnetic energy from a source to a given distant point separated by empty space, with possible applications in wireless transmission of energy.