Skyrmion-(Anti)Vortex Coupling in a Chiral Magnet-Superconductor Heterostructure
A. P. Petrović, M. Raju, X. Y. Tee, Alex Louat, I. Maggio‐Aprile, Raí M. Menezes, Michał J. Wyszyński, Nghiep Khoan Duong, M. Reznikov, Ch. Renner, M. V. Miloševıć, C. Panagopoulos
Abstract
We report experimental coupling of chiral magnetism and superconductivity in [IrFeCoPt]/Nb heterostructures. The stray field of skyrmions with radius ≈50 nm is sufficient to nucleate antivortices in a 25 nm Nb film, with unique signatures in the magnetization, critical current, and flux dynamics, corroborated via simulations. We also detect a thermally tunable Rashba-Edelstein exchange coupling in the isolated skyrmion phase. This realization of a strongly interacting skyrmion-(anti)vortex system opens a path toward controllable topological hybrid materials, unattainable to date.