Spin-orbit enabled all-electrical readout of chiral spin-textures
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Updated: Sep 29, 2025

Experimental Methods for Spin- and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy Combined with Polarization-Variable Laser
Published on: June 28, 2018
Imara Lima Fernandes1, Stefan Blügel2, Samir Lounis3,4
1Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA, D-52425, Jülich, Germany. i.lima.fernandes@fz-juelich.de.
Abstract:
Chirality and topology are intimately related fundamental concepts, which are heavily explored to establish spin-textures as potential magnetic bits in information technology. However, this ambition is inhibited since the electrical reading of chiral attributes is highly non-trivial with conventional current perpendicular-to-plane (CPP) sensing devices. Here we demonstrate from extensive first-principles simulations and multiple scattering expansion the emergence of the chiral spin-mixing magnetoresistance (C-XMR) enabling highly efficient all-electrical readout of the chirality and helicity of respectively one- and two-dimensional magnetic states of matter. It is linear with spin-orbit coupling in contrast to the quadratic dependence associated with the unveiled non-local spin-mixing anisotropic MR (X-AMR). Such transport effects are systematized on various non-collinear magnetic states - spin-spirals and skyrmions - and compared to the uncovered spin-orbit-independent multi-site magnetoresistances. Owing to their simple implementation in readily available reading devices, the proposed magnetoresistances offer exciting and decisive ingredients to explore with all-electrical means the rich physics of topological and chiral magnetic objects.
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