Electrical Signature of Noncollinear Magnetic Textures in Synthetic Antiferromagnets

Davide Maccariello ,* William Legrand, Nicolas Reyren , Fernando Ajejas , Karim Bouzehouane, Sophie Collin, Jean-Marie George, Vincent Cros,† and Albert Fert

PHYSICAL REVIEW APPLIED 14, 051001 (2020)

By using magnetic multilayers with compensated perpendicular anisotropy and antiferromagnetic coupling between neighboring layers, we show that noncollinear magnetization textures in synthetic antiferromagnet systems can be electrically detected. With the support of magnetic force microscopy and micromagnetic simulations, we enlighten the phenomena behind the magnetotransport measurements. The observed magnetoresistive response can be phenomenologically described by two competing main contributions: a giant-magnetoresistance-like interlayer contribution and an intralayer contribution due to in-plane magnetic moments present in any noncollinear magnetic texture. Relying on both temperature and field-dependence measurements, we show that the details of the magnetic textures can be quantitatively determined through electrical measurements.

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.14.051001