Designing antiferromagnetic anisotropy to stabilise solitons in a uniform background

We recently made the pioneering discovery of a family of topological AFM solitons, in the classic oxide antiferromagnet (AFM) a-Fe2O3, which are stable at room temperature. Such AFM solitons could emerge as prime candidates to build unconventional ultra-fast logic-in-memory devices. However, a major issue is that AFM solitons observed thus far emerge randomly in a non-uniform magnetic background. This makes it difficult to control them individually in a targeted manner. To address this challenge it is vital to redesign the magnetic energy landscape by tailor the AFM anisotropy. To this end, we have prepared a new class of a-Fe2O3 thin film samples on vicinal crystals to introduce an in-plane anisotropy. Our preliminary studies show that this biases the AFM domains in the topologically rich state which could be used to create a uniform AFM background. Here, we propose a series of X-ray dichroism experiments that will help to unveil the evolution of the new anisotropy and corresponding AFM ground-states as a function of magnetic field, temperature and vicinal mis-cut orientation. These results will pave the way for building AFM devices where individual topological solitons can be stabilised and controlled in a targeted manner.