Electric-field control of magnetic domain-wallvelocity in ultrathin cobalt with perpendicularmagnetization

摘要

Controlling the displacement of a magnetic domain wall is potentially useful for informationprocessing in magnetic non-volatile memories and logic devices. A magnetic domain wallcan be moved by applying an external magnetic field and/or electric current, and its velocitydepends on their magnitudes. Here we show that the applying an electric field can changethe velocity of a magnetic domain wall significantly. A field-effect device, consisting of a topgate electrode, a dielectric insulator layer, and a wire-shaped ferromagnetic Co/Pt thin layerwith perpendicular anisotropy, was used to observe it in a finite magnetic field. We found thatthe application of the electric fields in the range of ±2–3 mVcm~(-1) can change the magnetic domain wall velocity in its creep regime (10~6–10~3ms~(-1)) by more than an order of magnitude.This significant change is due to electrical modulation of the energy barrier for the magneticdomain wall motion.