The Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction mediates collinear
magnetic interactions via the conduction electrons of a non-magnetic spacer,
resulting in a ferro- or antiferromagnetic magnetization in magnetic
multilayers. The resulting spin-polarized charge transport effects have found
numerous applications. Recently it has been discovered that heavy non-magnetic
spacers are able to mediate an indirect magnetic coupling that is non-collinear
and chiral. This Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya-enhanced RKKY (DME-RKKY) interaction
causes the emergence of a variety of interesting magnetic structures, such as
skyrmions and spin spirals. Applications using these magnetic quasi-particles
require a thorough understanding and fine-tuning of the balance between the
Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and other magnetic interactions, e.g., the
exchange interaction and magnetic anisotropy contributions. Here, we show by
spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy that the spin structure of
manganese oxide chains on Ir(001) can reproducibly be switched from chiral to
collinear antiferromagnetic interchain interactions by increasing the oxidation
state of MnO2 while the reverse process can be induced by thermal reduction.
The underlying structural change is revealed by low-energy electron diffraction
intensity data (LEED-IV) analysis. Density functional theory calculations
suggest that the magnetic transition may be caused by a significant increase of
the Heisenberg exchange upon oxidation.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure