Cycloidal Domains in the Magnetization Reversal Process of Ni80Fe20/Nd16Co84/Gd12Co88 Trilayers

The magnetization reversal of each individual layer in magnetic trilayers ( permalloy / Nd Co / Gd Co ) is investigated in detail with x-ray microscopy and micromagnetic calculations. Two sequential inversion mechanisms are identified. First, magnetic vortex-antivortex pairs move along the field direction while inverting the magnetization of magnetic stripes until they are pinned by defects. The vortex-antivortex displacements are reversible within a field interval which allows their controlled motion. Second, as the reversed magnetic field increases, cycloidal domains appear in the permalloy layer as a consequence of the dissociation of vortex-antivortex pairs due to pinning. The field range where magnetic vortices and antivortices are effectively guided by the stripe pattern is of the order of tens of mT for the Ni Fe layer, as estimated from the stability of cycloid domains in the sample

Fourier-space generalized magneto-optical ellipsometry

The magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) is widely exploited in laboratory-based setups for the study of thin films and nanostructures, providing magnetic characterization with good spatial and temporal resolutions. Due to the complex coupling of light with a magnetic sample, conventional MOKE magnetometers normally work by selecting a small range of incident wave-vector values, focusing the incident light beam to a small spot, and recording the reflected intensity at that angular range by means of photodetectors. Using this approach, additional methodologies and measurements are required for full vectorial magnetic characterization. Here, we computationally investigate a Fourier-space MOKE setup, where a focused beam ellipsometer using high numerical aperture optics and a camera detector is employed to simultaneously map the intensity distribution for a wide range of incident and reflected wave vectors. We employ circularly incident polarized light and no analyzing optics, in combination with a fitting procedure of the light intensity maps to the analytical expression of the Kerr effect under linear approximation. In this way, we are able to retrieve the three unknown components of the magnetization vector as well as the material' s optical and magneto-optical constants with high accuracy and short acquisition times, with the possibility of single-shot measurements. Fourier MOKE is thus proposed as a powerful method to perform generalized magneto-optical ellipsometry for a wide range of magnetic materials and devices

Magnetic properties of permalloy antidot arrayfabricated by interference lithography

The interference laser lithography and ion-beam sputtering have been reported. Magneto-optical Kerr effect magnetometry indicated that the sample exhibits four-fold anisotropic behaviour, i.e. different magnetization loops were observed when the external magnetic field was applied along either x-or y-axis, or along the array diagonal. Broadband ferromagnetic resonance measurements revealed a rich variety of different magnetization configurations in the unsaturated state that can be controlled by the orientation of the external magnetic field. Micromagnetic simulations have been performed to explain the observed results. On the contrary, in the saturated regime the system demonstrated almost isotropic magnetic behaviour that improves with external field increase. The obtained results show the potential of interference lithography for the fabrication of large area antidot arrays. (C) 2019 Author(s).The Portuguese team acknowledges the Network of Extreme Conditions Laboratories-NECL and Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT) support through the projects NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-022096, MIT-EXPL/IRA/0012/2017, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031302, EXPL/IF/01191/2013 (D.N.), EXPL/IF/00541/2015 (S.A.B.), EXPL/IF/00981/2013 (G.N.K). D.N., G.N.K., C.R and R.M. acknowledge the support by the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement EU H2020-MSCA-RISE-2016 (No 734801). The Spanish team acknowledges the support from Spanish MINECO through the grant FIS2016-76058 (AEI/FEDER, UE). A.H.-R. acknowledges the support from European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action (reference H2020-MSCA-IF-2016-746958). G.N.K. and O.V.D. acknowledge the support from European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) project CA16218 "NANOCOHYBRI.

Tunable ferromagnetic resonance in coupled trilayers with crossed in-plane and perpendicular magnetic anisotropies

An original approach to tune the ferromagnetic resonance frequency of a soft magnetic Ni80Fe20 (Permalloy = Py) film with in-plane magnetic anisotropy (IMA) based on the controlled coupling to a hard magnetic NdCox film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) through a nonmagnetic Al spacer is studied. Using the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect (T-MOKE), alternating gradient magnetometry (AGM), and vector network analyzer ferromagnetic resonance (VNA-FMR) spectroscopy, the influence of both the Co concentration and the Al spacer thickness on the static and dynamic magnetic properties of the coupled IMA/PMA system is investigated. Compared to a single Py film, two striking effects of the coupling between IMA and PMA layers can be observed in their FMR spectra. First, there is a significant increase in the zero-field resonance frequency from 2.0 GHz up to 6.4 GHz, and second, an additional frequency hysteresis occurs at low magnetic fields applied along the hard axis. The maximum frequency difference between the frequency branches for increasing and decreasing magnetic fields is as high as 1 GHz, corresponding to a tunability of about 20% at external fields of typically less than ±70 mT. The origin of the observed features in the FMR spectra is discussed by means of magnetization reversal curves

Nanoscale imaging of buried topological defects with quantitative X-ray magnetic microscopy

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.-- et al.Advances in nanoscale magnetism increasingly require characterization tools providing detailed descriptions of magnetic configurations. Magnetic transmission X-ray microscopy produces element specific magnetic domain images with nanometric lateral resolution in films up to ∼100 nm thick. Here we present an imaging method using the angular dependence of magnetic contrast in a series of high resolution transmission X-ray microscopy images to obtain quantitative descriptions of the magnetization (canting angles relative to surface normal and sense). This method is applied to 55-120 nm thick ferromagnetic NdCo 5 layers (canting angles between 65° and 22°), and to a NdCo 5 film covered with permalloy. Interestingly, permalloy induces a 43° rotation of Co magnetization towards surface normal. Our method allows identifying complex topological defects (merons or 1/2 skyrmions) in a NdCo 5 film that are only partially replicated by the permalloy overlayer. These results open possibilities for the characterization of deeply buried magnetic topological defects, nanostructures and devices.Work supported by Spanish MINECO under grant FIS2013-45469. A. Hierro-Rodriguez acknowledges support from FCT of Portugal (Grant SFRH/BPD/90471/2012). C. Blanco-Roldán thanks support from CSIC JAE Predoc Program.Peer Reviewe

Expectations by the Latent Demand of Physical Activity of Older Women and Men in Spain

El objetivo de este estudio es analizar en el conjunto de mujeres y varones mayores de 65 años en España que no practican pero desearían practicar actividad física (demanda latente), las posibles diferencias de género en las expectativas sobre las actividades demandadas y los beneficios que esperan obtener con su práctica. La metodología ha consistido en la realización de entrevistas cara a cara, aplicando un cuestionario estructurado, a una muestra aleatoriamente seleccionada de la población española de 65 años o más. Los 933 sujetos participantes en el estudio tenían una edad media de 74,1 años, siendo el 53,1% mujeres y el 46,9% varones. Los resultados obtenidos revelan que gran parte de estas mujeres mayores parecen tender a concentrar sus demandas en programas de ejercicio físico (39,7%) o de actividades en el medio acuático (39,7%). También gran parte de los varones mayores se inclinan por ambas actividades (33,3% y 28,1%), pero otros prefieren algunos deportes (21,1%) y actividades al aire libre (12,3%). El principal beneficio que estos hombres y mujeres mayores buscan en estas actividades es mantener o mejorar la salud seguidos de diferentes beneficios sociales y de ocupación del tiempo libre. Estas expectativas deberían ser consideradas en los programas dirigidos a este colectivo.Actividad Física y Deport

Immune Profiling of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells at Pancreas Acute Rejection Episodes in Kidney-Pancreas Transplant Recipients

Profiling of circulating immune cells provides valuable insight to the pathophysiology of acute rejection in organ transplantation. Herein we characterized the peripheral blood mononuclear cells in simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant recipients. We conducted a retrospective analysis in a biopsy-matched cohort (n = 67) and compared patients with biopsy proven acute rejection (BPAR; 41%) to those without rejection (No-AR). We observed that CD3+ T cells, both CD8+ and CD4+, as well as CD19+ B cells were increased in patients with BPAR, particularly in biopsies performed in the early post-transplant period (<3 months). During this period immune subsets presented a good discriminative ability (CD4+ AUC 0.79; CD8+ AUC 0.80; B cells AUC 0.86; p < 0.05) and outperformed lipase (AUC 0.62; p = 0.12) for the diagnosis of acute rejection. We further evaluated whether this could be explained by differences in frequencies prior to transplantation. Patients presenting with early post-transplant rejection (<3 months) had a significant increase in T-cell frequencies pre-transplant, both CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells (p < 0.01), which were associated with a significant inferior rejection-free graft survival. T cell frequencies in peripheral blood correlated with pancreas acute rejection episodes, and variations prior to transplantation were associated with pancreas early acute rejection.Copyright © 2022 Rovira, Ramirez-Bajo, Bañón-Maneus, Hierro-Garcia, Lazo-Rodriguez, Piñeiro, Montagud-Marrahi, Cucchiari, Revuelta, Cuatrecasas, Campistol, Ricart, Diekmann, Garcia-Criado and Ventura-Aguiar

Tuning topological defects in magnetic stripe domains of lateral multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

Resumen del póster presentado a la VIII Edición de la Reunión Bienal del Grupo Especializado de Física del Estado Sólido de la Real Sociedad Española de Física celebrada del en Ciudad Real del 22 al 24 de enero de 2014.Peer Reviewe

Observation and formation mechanism of 360° domain wall rings in synthetic anti-ferromagnets with interlayer chiral interactions

The interlayer Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (IL-DMI) chirally couples spins in different ferromagnetic layers of multilayer heterostructures. So far, samples with IL-DMI have been investigated utilizing magnetometry and magnetotransport techniques, where the interaction manifests as a tunable chiral exchange bias field. Here, we investigate the nanoscale configuration of the magnetization vector in a synthetic anti-ferromagnet (SAF) with IL-DMI, after applying demagnetizing field sequences. We add different global magnetic field offsets to the demagnetizing sequence in order to investigate the states that form when the IL-DMI exchange bias field is fully or partially compensated. For magnetic imaging and vector reconstruction of the remanent magnetic states, we utilize x-ray magnetic circular dichroism photoemission electron microscopy, evidencing the formation of 360° domain wall rings of typically 0.5–3.0 μm in diameter. These spin textures are only observed when the exchange bias field due to the IL-DMI is not perfectly compensated by the magnetic field offset. From a combination of micromagnetic simulations, magnetic charge distribution, and topology arguments, we conclude that a non-zero remanent effective field with components both parallel and perpendicular to the anisotropy axis of the SAF is necessary to observe the rings. This work shows how the exchange bias field due to IL-DMI can lead to complex metastable spin states during reversal, important for the development of future spintronic devices