Direct Imaging Of Effective Spin Meron Pairs In Magnetic Multilayers

Spin textures have been an interesting topic of magnetism research for many years. Within this field, magnetic vortices have attracted much attention, due to their non-trivial topology and the various dynamic modes they exhibit. Such a magnetic vortex consists of a planar, flux-closing magnetization curl that turns out of the plane in the central nanoscopic core region. In a single vortex, typically no significant radial magnetization components are present. Recent investigations show that this also holds true for multilayer vortex systems with bilinear interlayer exchange coupling (IEC).
Here we report on pairs of diverging-converging spin vortices occurring in patterned magnetic multilayers (Co/Rh/NiFe). These effective meron states can be understood as a superposition of the topological meron state (defined by a perfectly radial magnetization distribution) and a regular tangential vortex. Using magnetic scanning transmission x-ray microscopy (STXM) we directly image the individual effective merons in both ferromagnetic layers with high lateral resolution. Supporting SQUID measurements and micromagnetic simulations reveal that a significant biqudratic IEC is necessary to stabilize the states observed.