Imprinting antivortex states from ferromagnetic Fe into antiferromagnetic NiO in epitaxial NiO/Fe/Ag(001) microstructures

Magnetic vortex and antivortex are the two basic topological states in magnetic systems. While the ferromagnetic (FM) vortex state can be formed spontaneously and be imprinted into an antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer in AFM/FM disks, the antivortex state has never been realized in AFM films. By fabricating single crystalline NiO/Fe/Ag(001) microstructures, we show that the magnetic antivortex state can be created in the Fe microstructures and imprinted into the AFM NiO layer.