Staggered field driven domain walls motion in antiferromagnetic heterojunctions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how antiferromagnetic domain walls can be manipulated via interlayer couplings and spin-orbit torques in heterostructures, revealing critical thresholds and proposing methods for efficient control in spintronics.

Contribution

It introduces a micromagnetic simulation study of AFM domain wall dynamics driven by interlayer coupling and field-like Neel spin-orbit torque, offering new insights for AFM spintronics device design.

Findings

AFM domain walls can be driven by neighboring layers through interface coupling.

A critical torque value causes domain walls to detach.

Maximum domain wall velocity depends on material and interface parameters.

Abstract

In this work, we study the antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin dynamics in heterostructures which consist of two kinds of AFM layers. Our micromagnetic simulations demonstrate that the AFM domain-wall (DW) can be driven by the other one (driven by field-like Neel spin-orbit torque, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 017202 (2016)) through the interface couplings. Furthermore, the two DWs detach from each other when the torque increases above a critical value. The critical field and the highest possible velocity of the DW depending on several factors are revealed and discussed. Bases on the calculated results, we propose a method to modulate efficiently the multi DWs in antiferromagnet, which definitely provides useful information for future AFM spintronics device design.