Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in Magnetic Topological Systems

The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) is an antisymmetric exchange arising from broken inversion symmetry and strong spin–orbit coupling in magnetic materials. It favours canted and chiral spin arrangements, stabilising a rich variety of topological spin textures such as skyrmions, antiskyrmions and bimerons. In magnetic topological systems, DMI couples with magnetic anisotropy, interlayer exchange and external stimuli (electric fields, currents or strain) to produce robust, nanoscale information carriers. This interplay underpins advances in ultralow-power spintronic devices, nonvolatile memory architectures and logic elements. By engineering interfaces, stacking sequences or chemical composition, researchers have demonstrated precise control over DMI strength and sign, enabling deterministic creation, deletion and manipulation of chiral textures at room temperature. The global significance of this field spans from fundamental studies of emergent quasiparticles to potential applications in energy-efficient data storage, reconfigurable logic and quantum computing platforms.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have uncovered a long-range intralayer DMI in heavy-metal/ferromagnet structures, revealing an out-of-plane effective field that varies with interfacial DMI constants, applied in-plane fields and anisotropy gradients. This effect enables asymmetric switching of perpendicular magnetisation and programmable, complete Boolean logic operations within a single spin-orbit torque device.

Simulations of twisted bilayer magnets have demonstrated that moiré-induced interlayer exchange fields can stabilise diverse topological spin textures in van der Waals heterostructures without the need for conventional chiral spin–orbit coupling. These findings illuminate the role of next-nearest-neighbour DMI in twisted magnetic bilayers and open avenues for moiré skyrmionics at zero external field.

Investigations in synthetic antiferromagnetic multilayers have revealed an interlayer DMI that breaks symmetry across magnetic layers separated by heavy-metal spacers. This interaction produces an asymmetric spin-orbit torque switching under in-plane fields, offering a route to deterministic, field-free magnetisation control in antiferromagnet-based spintronics.

Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in Magnetic Topological Systems publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in dzyaloshinskii-moriya interaction in magnetic topological systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI): An antisymmetric exchange coupling favouring canted, chiral spin configurations in systems with broken inversion symmetry and strong spin–orbit coupling.

Skyrmion: A topologically protected whirl of spins forming a particle-like excitation, stabilised by DMI and employed as a nanoscale information carrier.

Spin–orbit torque (SOT): A mechanism by which spin currents generated via spin–orbit coupling exert torques on local magnetic moments, enabling current-driven magnetisation switching.

Moiré superlattice: A long-wavelength interference pattern arising from a small rotational or lattice mismatch between stacked two-dimensional crystals, modifying electronic and magnetic interactions.

Synthetic antiferromagnet: A multilayer structure in which ferromagnetic layers are coupled antiferromagnetically via nonmagnetic spacers, engineered for fast, low-power magnetic switching.

References

1. Asymmetric magnetization switching and programmable complete Boolean logic enabled by long-range intralayer Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. Nature Communications (2024).
2. Whirling interlayer fields as a source of stable topological order in moiré CrI3. Communications Physics (2022).
3. Spin-orbit torque switching of chiral magnetization across a synthetic antiferromagnet. Communications Physics (2021).
4. Alloying Driven Antiferromagnetic Skyrmions on NiPS3 Monolayer: A First‐Principles Calculation. Advanced Science (2024).
5. Realizing unipolar and bipolar intrinsic skyrmions in MXenes from high-fidelity first-principles calculations. npj Computational Materials (2023).
6. Field-free spin-orbit torque switching of synthetic antiferromagnet through interlayer Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. Cell Reports Physical Science (2023).