Non-collinear spin textures in magnetic moiré van der Waals heterostructures

Principal investigators

  1. Jeison Fischer, University of Cologne
  2. Amilcar Bedoya-Pinto, University of Valencia [webpage]

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Abstract

Our main objective is to explore and investigate heterostructures composed of magnetic 2D materials with varying lattice constants forming a moiré pattern as a platform to stabilize non-collinear spin textures. Our approach is based on the moiré induced changes in interlayer exchange coupling, but it is not limited to the case of two different ferromagnetic layers. We intend to also investigate the interplay between a ferromagnet and a Néel antiferromagnet, as well as magnetic moiré of layers having in-plane and out-of-plane anisotropy.

We will prepare van der Waals heterostructures in-situ via molecular-beam epitaxy to ensure atomically clean interfaces and characterize the magnetic moiré in view of the resulting magnetic order with spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) as well as synchrotron-based x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and x-ray resonant magnetic scattering (XRMS).