Electrical switching of an antiferromagnet

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates room-temperature electrical switching and read-out of antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin films, revealing their potential for spintronics applications due to their insensitivity to magnetic perturbations.

Contribution

We show how to control antiferromagnets electrically using even-in-moment relativistic effects, enabling stable magnetic memory without magnetic field interference.

Findings

Successful room-temperature electrical switching of antiferromagnetic states.

Electrical read-out of the magnetic configuration in CuMnAs.

Antiferromagnetic memory is insensitive to magnetic field perturbations.

Abstract

Louis Neel pointed out in his Nobel lecture that while abundant and interesting from a theoretical viewpoint, antiferromagnets did not seem to have any applications. Indeed, the alternating directions of magnetic moments on individual atoms and the resulting zero net magnetization make antiferromagnets hard to control by tools common in ferromagnets. Remarkably, Neel in his lecture provides the key which, as we show here, allows us to control antiferromagnets by electrical means analogous to those which paved the way to the development of ferromagnetic spintronics applications. The key noted by Neel is the equivalence of antiferromagnets and ferromagnets for effects that are an even function of the magnetic moment. Based on even-in-moment relativistic transport phenomena, we demonstrate room-temperature electrical switching between two stable configurations combined with electrical read-out in antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin film devices. Our magnetic memory is insensitive to and produces no magnetic field perturbations which illustrates the unique merits of antiferromagnets for spintronics.