Magnetic Skyrmion Diode: Unidirectional Skyrmion Transport via Confining Potential Modulation

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions — stable particle-like chiral spin structures — have vigorously attracted both fundamental and technological interests for the future spintronic devices [1-3]. In this work, we report a micromagnetic study of the influence of pinning potentials on current-induced skyrmion dynamics and demonstrate that skyrmion transport can be controlled and rectified in one-direction by manipulating pinning potentials. From those numerical calculation results, we propose a skyrmion diode, where skyrmion propagation in different directions has a significantly different pinning resistance. The detailed concept of diode operation will be given in this presentation. The diode proposed here is built on a simple track-based structure. Therefore, all the designed structures can be connected to nanostrips with matching width of the branches for application to integrated circuit devices. Consequently, these results provide important guidelines for utilizing magnetic skyrmions in an integrated composite circuitry, as the skyrmion diode can be used to develop complex logic components or signal controllers.