Manipulating Anomalous Hall Antiferromagnets with Magnetic Fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how magnetic fields can manipulate the magnetic configurations of anomalous Hall effect antiferromagnets by emphasizing the dominant role of orbital magnetization over spin magnetization, especially under weak spin-orbit interactions.

Contribution

It explicitly evaluates orbital magnetizations in anomalous Hall antiferromagnets and explains their significant influence on magnetic field manipulation of these systems.

Findings

Orbital magnetization often dominates over spin magnetization in these materials.

Magnetic fields can effectively manipulate magnetic configurations via orbital magnetization response.

Orbital magnetization's response to Zeeman-like fields is crucial for control strategies.

Abstract

The symmetry considerations that imply a non-zero anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in certain non-collinear antiferromagnets also imply both non-zero orbital magnetization and a net spin magnetization. We have explicitly evaluated the orbital magnetizations of several anomalous Hall effect antiferromagnets and find that they tend to dominate over spin magnetizations, especially so when spin-orbit interactions are weak. Because of the greater relative importance of orbital magnetization the coupling between magnetic order and an external magnetic field is unusual. We explain how magnetic fields can be used to manipulate magnetic configurations in these systems, pointing in particular to the important role played by the response of orbital magnetization to the Zeeman-like spin exchange fields.