Antiferromagnetic domain wall motion driven by polarized spin waves

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in antiferromagnets, the motion of magnetic domain walls driven by spin waves can be controlled by the polarization of the spin waves, enabling new ways to design information processing devices.

Contribution

It reveals the dependence of antiferromagnetic domain wall motion on spin wave polarization due to Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, a novel control mechanism.

Findings

Domain wall motion depends on spin wave polarization.

Linear polarization tuning steers domain wall movement.

Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction enables polarization control.

Abstract

The control of magnetic domain walls is essential for the magnetic-based memory and logic applications. As an elementary excitation of magnetic order, spin wave is capable of moving magnetic domain walls just as the conducting electric current. Ferromagnetic spin waves can only be right-circularly polarized. In contrast, antiferromagnetic spin waves have full polarization degree of freedom, including both left- and right-circular polarizations, as well as all possible linear or elliptical ones. Here we demonstrate that, due to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, the spin wave driven domain wall motion in antiferromagnets strongly depends on the linear polarization direction of the injected spin waves. Steering domain wall motion by simply tuning the polarization of spin waves offers new designing principles for domain-wall based information processing devices.