Demonstration of weighted sum using electrical manipulation and detection of magnetic skyrmions

Thanks to their original properties, magnetic skyrmions have many promising applications, from memories, sensors to logic operations. In this study, we propose to use fully-electrical manipulation and detection of magnetic skyrmions in multilayer devices to perform a basic unconventional computation operation in hardware. The fabricated devices take advantage of the particle-like nature of the magnetic skyrmions: operations can be applied to a large ensemble of skyrmions using fully-electrical stimuli, while skyrmions can be counted individually by electrical means. Here, we show the nucleation and the motion of a controlled number of magnetic skyrmions in multilayer tracks using electrical current pulse parameters. Then, we show that the number of skyrmions can be directly summed and detected with non-perturbative Anomalous Hall resistance measurements. Magneto-ionic effects are used for the local non-volatile and reversible tuning of the magnetic properties of the tracks.