Electrical Signature of Noncollinear Magnetic Textures in Synthetic Antiferromagnets

Per the renewed interest in the magnetic properties of ultrathin multilayers for spintronics, the authors show how electrical-transport characterization can provide crucial information about reversal mechanisms between different magnetic configurations in synthetic antiferromagnetic (SAF) multilayers, with or without perpendicular anisotropy. Here competition between different magnetoresistive effects provides information about the system's magnetic properties and the proportions of all magnetization components in the stabilized magnetic textures. This work extends previous possibilities toward the detection of isolated magnetic domains, spin spirals, or even skyrmions in SAF systems.