Generation and Hall effect of skyrmions enabled using nonmagnetic point contacts

The generation and manipulation of magnetic skyrmions are perquisites for any skyrmion-based information processing devices, where skyrmions are used as nonvolatile information carriers. In this work, we report experimentally the skyrmion generation through the usage of a nonmagnetic conducting Ti/Au point contact in a device made of a Ta/CoFeB/TaOx trilayer film. Moreover, the accompanied topological charge-dependent skyrmion dynamics, namely the skyrmion Hall effect, is also observed in the same device. The creation process of a skyrmion has been numerically reproduced through micromagnetic simulations, in which the important role of the skyrmion-antiskyrmion pair formation is identified. The motion and Hall effect of a skyrmion, immediately after its creation, is described using a modified Thiele equation after taking into account the contribution from spatially inhomogeneous spin-orbit torques and the Magnus force. Our results on the simultaneous generation and manipulation of skyrmions using a nonmagnetic point contact are useful for understanding the ultrafast dynamics of skyrmion creation, which could also provide an effective pathway for designing skyrmion-based devices.