Detection of the Chiral Spin Structure in Ferromagnetic SrRuO$_3$ Thin Film

A SrRuO$_3$ (SRO) thin film and its heterostructure have brought much attention because of the recently demonstrated fascinating properties, such as topological Hall effect and skyrmions. Critical to the understanding of those SRO properties is the study of the spin configuration. Here, we conduct resonant soft x-ray scattering (RSXS) at oxygen K-edge to investigate the spin configuration of a 4 unit-cell SRO film that was grown epitaxially on a single crystal SrTiO$_3$. The RSXS signal under a magnetic field (~0.4 Tesla) clearly shows a magnetic dichroism pattern around the specular reflection. Model calculations on the RSXS signal demonstrate that the magnetic dichroism pattern originates from a Néel-type chiral spin structure in this SRO thin film. We believe that the observed spin structure of the SRO system is a critical piece of information for understanding its intriguing magnetic and transport properties.

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