Micromagnetics of Spin-Flop Bilayers: S, C, and Vortex Spin States

Spin-flop tunnel junctions subjected to strong gigahertz excitations are found to exhibit highly stable resistance states, intermediate between the two spin-uniform ground states of high and low resistance. The associated spin distributions are necessarily nonuniform and differ significantly from the ground-state anti-parallel spin configuration in their static and dynamic properties. Detailed micromagnetic modeling reveals that inplane spin vortices in dipole-coupled thin-film bilayers are stable spin configurations, where the orientation of the vortex cores and the vortex chirality play an important role in the response of the system to external magnetic fields.