Current polarity-dependent manipulation of antiferromagnetic domains

Wadley, P., Reimers, Sonka, Grzybowski, M.J., Andrews, Carl, Wang, Mu, Chauhan, Jasbinder, Gallagher, B.L., Campion, R.P., Edmonds, K.W., Dhesi, S.S., Maccherozzi, F., Novák, V., Wunderlich, J. and Jungwirth, T. (2018) Current polarity-dependent manipulation of antiferromagnetic domains. Nature Nanotechnology, 13 . pp. 362-365. ISSN 1748-3395

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Abstract

Antiferromagnets have several favourable properties as active elements in spintronic devices, including ultra-fast dynamics, zero stray fields and insensitivity to external magnetic fields. Tetragonal CuMnAs is a testbed system in which the antiferromagnetic order parameter can be switched reversibly at ambient conditions using electrical currents. In previous experiments, orthogonal in-plane current pulses were used to induce 90° rotations of antiferromagnetic domains and demonstrate the operation of all-electrical memory bits in a multi-terminal geometry. Here, we demonstrate that antiferromagnetic domain walls can be manipulated to realize stable and reproducible domain changes using only two electrical contacts. This is achieved by using the polarity of the current to switch the sign of the current-induced effective field acting on the antiferromagnetic sublattices. The resulting reversible domain and domain wall reconfigurations are imaged using X-ray magnetic linear dichroism microscopy, and can also be detected electrically. Switching by domain-wall motion can occur at much lower current densities than those needed for coherent domain switching.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Applied physics; Condensed-matter physics; Electronics, photonics and device physics; Nanoscale devices; Nanoscale materials
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Science > School of Physics and Astronomy
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0079-1
Depositing User: Edmonds, Kevin
Date Deposited: 14 Mar 2018 14:04
Last Modified: 12 Sep 2018 04:30
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/50274

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