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Abstract Silica aerogels have emerged as promising candidates as platforms for a variety of devices, including those used for magnetic logic and sensing. However, their non-planar structure also poses challenges for their use as substrates for thin film devices. For example, substrate disorder is established to strongly influence anisotropy in thin film magnetic materials. Here, we evaluate the substrate effect on induced uniaxial anisotropy in permalloy (Py) thin films and patterned structures, wherein the uniaxial anisotropy is clearly linked to a directionality of the magnetization hysteresis and modifications to zero field domain structures relative to a standard thermally oxidized Si substrate. The strength and direction of this anisotropy vary with location, indicating its non-uniform nature, and is estimated to be as large as 700 J/m³for 25 nm thick permalloy films, and decreases with increasing Py thickness. This substrate induced anisotropy is strong enough to modify the domain structures present in patterned magnetic elements and can have significant implications for the development of magnetic devices on aerogel substrates. Results are compared and found to be consistent with micromagnetic modelling of expected domain structures. 

Vertically inhomogeneous single layer ferrimagnetic films have emerged as exciting building blocks of potential next generation spintronic devices, owing to the observations of single layer switching driven by bulk spin–orbit torques resulting from broken inversion symmetry. However, little work has been performed to understand the role composition gradients play in determining the bulk and local magnetic properties of these films, as well as how changes introduced through composition gradients influence the switching behavior. We utilize atomistic spin simulations to explore how the local magnetization varies in CoGd alloys, both due to the decreased coordination number at surfaces and due to vertical inhomogeneities, and how this influences the switching fields in these films. While compositional modulation varies the local compensation point through the film thickness, it has no significant effect on the net compensation temperature of the alloy if the average composition stays the same, even with large variations. However, even minor variations in composition can drastically reduce the out-of-plane coercivity or even preclude perpendicular anisotropy entirely. Furthermore, the direction of the gradient determines the surface on which field driven magnetization reversal initiates, which can have design implications for future devices. This provides new insights into the role that composition gradients in ferrimagnetics play in magnetization reversal. 

Thin films composed of sputtered transition metal/rare earth (TM/RE) ferrimagnets have emerged as promising building blocks for future spintronic devices, offering tunable magnetic properties critical for data storage, memory, and logic applications. However, understanding how the combination of TM and RE elements influences effective magnetic properties, such as exchange stiffness (Aex), remains challenging. Magnetic vortices provide a versatile tool for probing these properties in thin film systems. By combining magnetic imaging via soft x-ray microscopy and micromagnetic modeling, we quantify the effective exchange stiffness in PyGd ferrimagnetic disks with varying Gd concentrations. Our results indicate a reduction in Aex to below 3 pJ/m for a 20% Gd concentration when compared to reference Py, and values below 2 pJ/m for 30% Gd, reflecting weak Ni–Gd exchange coupling. These findings highlight the critical role of rare earth content in tuning the exchange stiffness. The reduced exchange stiffness facilitates a linear field response of the magnetization up to the edge of the disk, as well as significant deformations in the vortex core itself when compared to films with larger Aex. Our results are in line with, albeit lower than, recent measurements of the exchange stiffness in intermixed PyGd. This reduced exchange stiffness has implications for the development of spintronic devices based on ferrimagnetic skyrmions. 

The stability and resonance spectra associated with a domain wall skyrmion embedded within a Néel skyrmion, forming a 1-kink skyrmion, has been studied using micromagnetic simulations. We show that the 1-kink skyrmion is stable over a wide range of fields at moderate strengths of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. By exciting these structures with a broadband magnetic field excitation, we find complex resonance behavior deviating from that of a pure Néel skyrmion. For out-of-plane excitations, the 1-kink skyrmion demonstrates an additional mode relative to that of the Néel skyrmion at reduced amplitude. These consist of low frequency and high frequency modes associated with both a breathing mode and an oscillation of the embedded domain wall skyrmion. Following an in-plane excitation, both Néel and 1-kink skyrmions exhibit a counterclockwise rotational mode with similar frequencies, as well as a higher frequency mode associated with the interaction of the structure with the ferromagnetic background state. These results may help pave the way for exploration of more complex spin structures for magnetic-based microwave devices. 

Spin-orbit torque (SOT) driven domain wall motion has attracted significant attention as the basis for a variety of spintronic devices due to its potential use as a high speed, low power means to manipulate the magnetic state of an object. While most previous attention has focused on ultrathin films wherein the material thickness is significantly less than the magnetic exchange length, recent reports have suggested unique dynamics may be achieved in intermediate and high thickness films. We used micromagnetic modelling to explore the role of the vertically non-uniform spin textures associated with the domain wall in nanowires of varying thickness on SOT driven domain wall motion. We found large velocity asymmetries between Bloch chiralities near the current density required for reversal of the Bloch component of the magnetization and linked these asymmetries to a gradual reorientation of the domain wall structure which drives a non-negligible, chiral Néel component of the domain wall. We further explored the influence of saturation magnetization, film thickness, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, and in-plane fields on domain wall dynamics. These results provide a framework for the development of SOT based devices based on domain wall motion in nanowires beyond the ultrathin film limit.