Imaging current-induced switching of antiferromagnetic domains in CuMnAs

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that electrical current can reliably and reversibly switch antiferromagnetic domains in CuMnAs thin films, with observable effects on electrical resistance, advancing spintronics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to control antiferromagnetic order electrically using x-ray magnetic linear dichroism microscopy, showing reproducible and reversible domain switching in CuMnAs.

Findings

Current induces inhomogeneous domain switching at submicron scale.

Reversible modification of AF domain structure observed.

Correlation between domain orientation and electrical resistance anisotropy.

Abstract

The magnetic order in antiferromagnetic (AF) materials is hard to control with external magnetic fields. However, recent advances in detecting and manipulating AF order electrically have opened up new prospects for these materials in basic and applied spintronics research. Using x-ray magnetic linear dichroism microscopy, we show here that staggered effective fields generated by electrical current can induce reproducible and reversible modification of the antiferromagnetic domain structure in microdevices fabricated from a tetragonal CuMnAs thin film. The current-induced domain switching is inhomogeneous at the submicron level. A clear correlation between the average domain orientation and the anisotropy of the electrical resistance is demonstrated.