Dynamic Symmetry Breaking in Chiral Magnetic Systems.

The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) in magnetic systems stabilizes spin textures with preferred chirality, applicable to next-generation memory and computing architectures. In perpendicularly magnetized heavy-metal/ferromagnet films, the interfacial DMI originating from structural inversion asymmetry and strong spin-orbit coupling favors chiral Néel-type domain walls (DWs) whose energetics and mobility remain at issue. Here, a new effect is characterized in which domains expand unidirectionally in response to a combination of out-of-plane and in-plane magnetic fields, with the growth direction controlled by the in-plane field strength.