Reduced thermal stability of antiferromagnetic nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermal stability of antiferromagnetic nanostructures, revealing that they are less stable than ferromagnetic ones under certain conditions, which impacts their use in spintronics devices.

Contribution

It provides theoretical and numerical analysis of the mean switching time of antiferromagnetic nanoparticles, highlighting the effects of damping and exchange interactions on stability.

Findings

Thermal stability of antiferromagnetic nanoparticles is significantly lower than ferromagnetic ones.

Low Gilbert damping leads to reduced stability due to exchange-enhanced attempt frequencies.

System parameters can be engineered to optimize switching rates in antiferromagnetic nanostructures.

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic materials hold promising prospects in novel types of spintronics applications. Assessing the stability of antiferromagnetic nanostructures against thermal excitations is a crucial aspect of designing devices with a high information density. Here we use theoretical calculations and numerical simulations to determine the mean switching time of antiferromagnetic nanoparticles in the superparamagnetic limit. It is demonstrated that the thermal stability is drastically reduced compared to ferromagnetic particles in the limit of low Gilbert damping, attributed to the exchange enhancement of the attempt frequencies. It is discussed how the system parameters have to be engineered in order to optimize the switching rates in antiferromagnetic nanoparticles.