Chirality-induced antisymmetry in magnetic domain wall speed

Abstract

In chiral magnetic materials, numerous intriguing phenomena such as built-in chiral magnetic domain walls (DWs) and skyrmions are generated by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). The DMI also results in asymmetric DW speeds under an in-plane magnetic field, which provides a useful scheme to measure the strength of the DMI. However, recent findings of additional asymmetries such as chiral damping have inhibited the unambiguous determination of the DMI strength, and the underlying mechanism of overall asymmetries comes under debate. Here, we experimentally investigate the nature of the additional asymmetry by extracting the DMI-induced symmetric contribution from the DW speed. Our results reveal that the additional asymmetry has a truly antisymmetric nature with the typical behavior governed by the DW chirality. In addition, the antisymmetric contribution alters the DW speed by a factor of 100, dominating the overall variation in DW speed. Thus, experimental inaccuracies can be largely removed by calibration with such antisymmetric contributions, enabling the standard DMI measurement scheme.