No Arabic abstract
Antiferromagnets offer spintronic device characteristics unparalleled in ferromagnets owing to their lack of stray fields, THz spin dynamics, and rich materials landscape. Microscopic imaging of aniferromagnetic domains is one of the key prerequisites for understading physical principles of the device operation. However, adapting common magnetometry techniques to the dipolar-field-free antiferromagnets has been a major challenge. Here we demonstrate in a collinear antiferromagnet a thermoelectric detection method by combining the magneto-Seebeck effect with local heat gradients generated by scanning far-field or near-field techniques. In a 20 nm epilayer of uniaxial CuMnAs we observe reversible 180 deg switching of the Neel vector via domain wall displacement, controlled by the polarity of the current pulses. We also image polarity-dependent 90 deg switching of the Neel vector in a thicker biaxial film, and domain shattering induced at higher pulse amplitudes. The antiferromagnetic domain maps obtained by our laboratory technique are compared to measurements by the established synchrotron microscopy using X-ray magnetic linear dichroism.
Magnons in antiferromagnets can support both right-handed and left-handed chiralities, which shed a light on the chirality-based spintronics. Here we demonstrate the switching and reading of magnon chirality in an artificial antiferromagnet. The coexisting antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic characteristic resonance modes are discovered, which permits a high tunability in the modulation of magnon chirality. The reading of the chirality is accomplished via the chirality-dependent spin pumping as well as spin rectification effect. Our result illustrates an ideal antiferromagnetic platform for handling magnon chirality and paves the way for chirality-based spintronics.
We show scalable and complete suppression of the recently reported terahertz-pulse-induced switching between different resistance states of antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin films by ultrafast gating. The gating functionality is achieved by an optically generated transiently conductive parallel channel in the semiconducting substrate underneath the metallic layer. The photocarrier lifetime determines the time scale of the suppression. As we do not observe a direct impact of the optical pulse on the state of CuMnAs, all observed effects are primarily mediated by the substrate. The sample region of suppressed resistance switching is given by the optical spot size, thereby making our scheme potentially applicable for transient low-power masking of structured areas with feature sizes of ~100 nm and even smaller.
Voltage control of interfacial magnetism has been greatly highlighted in spintronics research for many years, as it might enable ultra-low power technologies. Among few suggested approaches, magneto-ionic control of magnetism has demonstrated large modulation of magnetic anisotropy. Moreover, the recent demonstration of magneto-ionic devices using hydrogen ions presented relatively fast magnetization toggle switching, tsw ~ 100 ms, at room temperature. However, the operation speed may need to be significantly improved to be used for modern electronic devices. Here, we demonstrate that the speed of proton-induced magnetization toggle switching largely depends on proton-conducting oxides. We achieve ~1 ms reliable (> 103 cycles) switching using yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), which is ~ 100 times faster than the state-of-the-art magneto-ionic devices reported to date at room temperature. Our results suggest further engineering of the proton-conducting materials could bring substantial improvement that may enable new low-power computing scheme based on magneto-ionics.
Memristive devices whose resistance can be hysteretically switched by electric field or current are intensely pursued both for fundamental interest as well as potential applications in neuromorphic computing and phase-change memory. When the underlying material exhibits additional charge or spin order, the resistive states can be directly coupled, further allowing for electrical control of the collective phases. Here, we report the observation of abrupt, memristive switching of tunneling current in nanoscale junctions of ultrathin CrI$_3$, a natural layer antiferromagnet. The coupling to spin order enables both tuning of the resistance hysteresis by magnetic field, and electric-field switching of magnetization even in multilayer samples.
We resolve the domain-wall structure of the model antiferromagnet $text{Cr}_2text{O}_3$ using nanoscale scanning diamond magnetometry and second-harmonic-generation microscopy. We find that the 180$^circ$ domain walls are predominantly Bloch-like, and can co-exist with Neel walls in crystals with significant in-plane anisotropy. In the latter case, Neel walls that run perpendicular to a magnetic easy axis acquire a well-defined chirality. We further report quantitative measurement of the domain-wall width and surface magnetization. Our results provide fundamental input and an experimental methodology for the understanding of domain walls in pure, intrinsic antiferromagnets, which is relevant to achieve electrical control of domain-wall motion in antiferromagnetic compounds.