Demo

Vortex dynamics

In this example, we are going to simulate vortex core dynamics. After creating a vortex structure, we are first going to displace it by applying an external magnetic field. We will then turn off the external field, and compute the time-development of the system, and then be able to see the dynamics of the vortex core.

The sample is a two-dimensional Permalloy disk sample with \(r=50 \,\text{nm}\) edge length and \(10\,\text{nm}\) thickness. Its energy equation consists of ferromagnetic exchange, Zeeman, and demagnetisation energy terms:

\[E = \int_{V} \left[-A\mathbf{m}\cdot\nabla^{2}\mathbf{m} - \mu_{0}M_\text{s}\mathbf{m}\cdot\mathbf{H} + w_\text{d}\right] \text{d}V,\]

where \(A = 13 \,\text{pJ}\,\text{m}^{-1}\) is the exchange energy constant, \(M_\text{s} = 8 \times 10^{5} \,\text{A}\,\text{m}^{-1}\) magnetisation saturation, \(w_\text{d}\) demagnetisation energy density, \(\mathbf{H}\) an external magnetic field, and \(\mathbf{m}=\mathbf{M}/M_\text{s}\) the normalised magnetisation field.

The magnetisation dynamics is governed by the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation consisting of precession and damping terms:

\[\frac{\partial\mathbf{m}}{\partial t} = -\frac{\gamma_{0}}{1+\alpha^{2}}\mathbf{m}\times\mathbf{H}_\text{eff} - \frac{\gamma_{0}\alpha}{1+\alpha^{2}}\mathbf{m}\times(\mathbf{m}\times\mathbf{H}_\text{eff}),\]

where \(\gamma_{0} = 2.211 \times 10^{5} \,\text{m}\,\text{A}^{-1}\,\text{s}^{-1}\) and \(\alpha = 0.05\) is the Gilbert damping.

The (initial) magnetisation field is a vortex state, whose magnetisation at each point \((x, y, z)\) in the sample can be represented as \((m_{x}, m_{y}, m_{z}) = (-cy, cx, 0.1)\), with \(c = 10^{-9} \text{m}^{-1}\).

# Some initial configurations
%config InlineBackend.figure_formats = ['svg']  # output matplotlib plots as SVG
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
pd.options.display.max_rows = 5
pd.options.display.float_format = '{:,.2e}'.format

System initialisation

The Ubermag code for defining the micromagnetic system is:

import discretisedfield as df
import micromagneticmodel as mm

# Geometry
r = 50e-9  # Radius of the thin nano magnetic disk (m)
thickness = 10e-9  # sample thickness (m)

# Material (Permalloy) parameters
Ms = 8e5  # saturation magnetisation (A/m)
A = 13e-12  # exchange energy constant (J/m)

# Dynamics (LLG equation) parameters
gamma0 = mm.consts.gamma0  # gyromagnetic ratio (m/As)
alpha = 0.05  # Gilbert damping

system = mm.System(name='vortex_dynamics')

# Energy equation. We omit Zeeman energy term, because H=0.
system.energy = mm.Exchange(A=A) + mm.Demag()

# Dynamics equation
system.dynamics = mm.Precession(gamma0=gamma0) + mm.Damping(alpha=alpha)


# initial magnetisation state
def m_init(point):
    x, y, _ = point
    c = 1e9  # (1/m)
    return (-c*y, c*x, 0.1)


# Defining the geometry of the material as a circular disk
def Ms_func(point):
    x, y, _ = point
    if x**2 + y**2 <= r**2:
        return Ms
    else:
        return 0


# Sample's centre is placed at origin
region = df.Region(p1=(-r, -r, -thickness/2), p2=(r, r, thickness/2))
mesh = df.Mesh(region=region, cell=(5e-9, 5e-9, 10e-9))

system.m = df.Field(mesh, nvdim=3, value=m_init, norm=Ms_func, valid='norm')

The system object is now defined and we can investigate some of its properties:

system.energy

$- A \mathbf{m} \cdot \nabla^{2} \mathbf{m}-\frac{1}{2}\mu_{0}M_\text{s}\mathbf{m} \cdot \mathbf{H}_\text{d}$

system.dynamics

$-\frac{\gamma_{0}}{1 + \alpha^{2}} \mathbf{m} \times \mathbf{H}_\text{eff}-\frac{\gamma_{0} \alpha}{1 + \alpha^{2}} \mathbf{m} \times (\mathbf{m} \times \mathbf{H}_\text{eff})$

system.m.orientation.sel('z').mpl()

Energy minimisation

To carry out micromagnetic simulation, we need to use a micromagnetic calulator. We are going to use OOMMF for this. We can now relax the system in the absence of external magnetic field using energy minimisation driver (MinDriver):

import oommfc as oc  # Micromagnetic Calculator

md = oc.MinDriver()
md.drive(system)

system.m.orientation.sel('z').mpl()

Running OOMMF (ExeOOMMFRunner)[2023/10/23 16:17]... (0.4 s)

Displacement with magnetic field

Now, we have a relaxed vortex state, with its core at the centre of the sample. As the next step, we want to add an external magnetic field \(H=3.4 \times 10^{4}\,\text{Am}^{-1}\) in the positive \(x\)-direction to displace the vortex core. We do that by adding the Zeeman energy term to the energy equation:

H = (3.4e4, 0, 0)  # an external magnetic field (A/m)

system.energy += mm.Zeeman(H=H)

md.drive(system)
system.m.orientation.sel('z').mpl()

Running OOMMF (ExeOOMMFRunner)[2023/10/23 16:17]... (0.3 s)

Free relaxation

The vortex core is now displaced in the positive \(y\)-direction. As the last step, we are going to turn off the external magnetic field and simulate dynamics using TimeDriver. We are going to run simulation for \(20\,\text{ns}\) and save the magnetisation in \(500\) steps.

system.energy -= mm.Zeeman(H=H)

td = oc.TimeDriver()
td.drive(system, t=20e-9, n=500, verbose=2)

Running OOMMF (ExeOOMMFRunner)[2023/10/23 16:17] took 12.4 s

The final magnetisation state shows that the vortex core has moved back to the sample’s centre.

system.m.orientation.sel('z').mpl()

Data analysis

Spatially averaged data

The table with scalar data saved during the simulation. Each row corresponds to one of the 500 saved configurations. We only show selected columns.

system.table.data[['t', 'mx', 'my', 'mz', 'E']].head()

	t	mx	my	mz	E
0	4.00e-11	4.18e-01	5.03e-02	1.82e-02	3.94e-18
1	8.00e-11	4.27e-01	1.92e-01	1.07e-02	3.89e-18
2	1.20e-10	4.26e-01	2.63e-01	3.90e-02	3.86e-18
3	1.60e-10	3.05e-01	2.82e-01	7.84e-03	3.83e-18
4	2.00e-10	2.57e-01	3.97e-01	2.66e-02	3.80e-18

We can now plot the average \(m_{x}\), \(m_{y}\) and \(m_{z}\) values as taken from the table as a function of time to give us an idea of the vortex core position.

system.table.mpl(y=['mx', 'my', 'mz'])

Spatially resolved data

Finally, we are going to have a look at the magnetisation field at different time-steps using micromagneticdata.

import micromagneticdata as mdata

data = mdata.Data(system.name)
data.info

	drive_number	date	time	driver	n_threads	t	n
0	0	2023-10-23	16:17:40	MinDriver	None	NaN	NaN
1	1	2023-10-23	16:17:40	MinDriver	None	NaN	NaN
2	2	2023-10-23	16:17:41	TimeDriver	None	2.00e-08	5.00e+02

To interactively inspect the time dependent magnetisation, we use data[-1] to refer to the last drive.

data[-1].hv(kdims=['x', 'y'], vdims=['x', 'y'], scalar_kw={'cmap': 'viridis', 'clim': (0, Ms)})

We can now compute winding number using operators from discretisedfield:

\[S = \frac{1}{4\pi}\iint q \,\,\text{d}x\text{d}y = \frac{1}{4\pi}\iint\mathbf{m}\cdot\left(\frac{\partial \mathbf{m}}{\partial x} \times \frac{\partial \mathbf{m}}{\partial y~}\right)\text{d}x\text{d}y\]

import math

m = system.m.orientation.sel('z')
S = m.dot(m.diff("x").cross(m.diff("y"))).integrate() / (4 * math.pi)
S

array([0.42290507])

The winding number is commonly used and there is a predefined function in discretisedfield.tools. To get more accurate results we use a different numerical method than just “naively” evaluating the integral.

df.tools.topological_charge(system.m.sel('z'), method='berg-luescher')

0.5024556893362209

We can also plot the topological charge density in an interactive plot.

data[-1].register_callback(lambda f: df.tools.topological_charge_density(f.sel('z'))).hv(kdims=['x', 'y'])

Trajectory of the vortex core

We can compute the trajectory of the vortex core via the center of mass of the topological charge:

\[\mathbf{R} = \frac{ \int \mathbf{r} \rho(\mathbf{r}) d^2\mathbf{r}}{\int \rho(\mathbf{r}) d^2\mathbf{r}}.\]

rho = df.tools.topological_charge_density(system.m.sel('z'))
r = system.m.sel('z').mesh.coordinate_field()
R = (r*rho).integrate()/rho.integrate()
R

array([6.24115027e-12, 4.54330909e-12])

Now, we need to find the center of the vortex at each time step, this can be achieved by taking the data from last drive.

def compute_vortex_centre(drive):
    x_coords = []
    y_coords = []

    r = drive[0].sel('z').mesh.coordinate_field()

    for m in drive:
        tcd = df.tools.topological_charge_density(m.sel('z'))
        centre_of_mass = (r*tcd).integrate()/tcd.integrate()
        x_coords.append(centre_of_mass[0])
        y_coords.append(centre_of_mass[1])

    return pd.DataFrame({'t': drive.table.data['t'], 'pos x': x_coords, 'pos y': y_coords})

pos_pol_plus = compute_vortex_centre(data[-1])

We can now plot the vortex trajectory on top of the initial configuration.

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
data[-1][0].orientation.sel('z').mpl(ax=ax, scalar_kw={'clim': (0, 1)})
ax.plot(pos_pol_plus['pos x']*1e9, pos_pol_plus['pos y']*1e9, c='yellow')

[<matplotlib.lines.Line2D at 0x7ff4e412a500>]

Finally, let us delete all simulation files:

oc.delete(system)