Kilian Leutner1, Thomas Winkler1, Hans Fangohr2,3, Mathias Kläui1
1 Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Institute of Physics, Staudinger Weg 7, Germany
2 Max-Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
3 University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, United Kingdom
Magnetic skyrmions are promising candidates for energy-efficient applications due to their quasi-particle nature and their topological stabilization. We present here a new concept for a multi-turn sensor-counter based on skyrmions. The skyrmion-boundary force in confined geometries leads with the topology-dependent dynamics to the effect of automotion in certain cases. Automotion describes the movement of magnetic structures without the supply of external energy. For our case, we describe and investigate this effect with micromagnetic simulations and the coarse-grained Thiele equation. Automotion has already been demonstrated for domain walls [1], but not well explored in skyrmionic systems yet.
Reference
[1] M.-A. Mawass et al, Phys. Rev. Applied 7, 044009, 2017