Local magnetic imaging at nanoscale resolution is highly desired for basic studies of magnetic materials, as well as for probing the reduction of magnetic memory size. However, such local imaging is hard to achieve by means of standard magnetic force microscopy (MFM) that exploits dipole-dipole interactions, where the resolution is fundamentally limited. While other magnetic imaging techniques such as spin polarized STM (SPSTM) and scanning squid microscopy (SSM) yielded highly resolved magnetic imaging, that lead to fundamental insights and research, they require low temperatures, high vacuum or strict limitations on the sample conditions. Other techniques such as MOKE and NV center are diffraction limited or able to probe weak magnetic stray fields only.

In my talk, I will present a simple and robust method for locally resolved magnetic imaging based on the short-range spin exchange interactions that can be scaled down to atomic resolution. The presented method, realized at room temperature, requires a conventional AFM tip functionalized with a chiral molecule. In proximity to the measured magnetic sample, charge redistribution in the chiral molecule leads to a transient spin state, caused by the chiral induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect, followed by the exchange interaction with the imaged sample. This method acquires accurate results compared to methods based on measuring the magnetic stray field. Using the same tip with adsorbed chiral molecules, two oppositely magnetized samples were characterized, and a magnetic imaging was performed. The method, we term CISS AFM, does not require high vacuum conditions, can be preform at room temperature and is simple to establish.