Quantitative Study on Current-Induced Effect in an Antiferromagnet Insulator/Pt Bilayer Film

TL;DR

This study investigates the current-induced effects in an antiferromagnetic insulator/Pt bilayer, demonstrating control of the Neel vector and distinguishing magnetic from non-magnetic contributions to magnetoresistance.

Contribution

It introduces a method to control and calibrate current-induced magnetic dynamics in antiferromagnetic insulators using an external field and distinguishes magnetic effects from resistive switching.

Findings

Neel vector can be controlled with a moderate external field.

Resistive switching can mimic magnetoresistance changes without magnetic origin.

Current-induced effects are quantitatively characterized in Pt/aFe2O3 bilayers.

Abstract

Quantitative investigation on the current-induced torque in antiferromagnets represents a great challenge, due to the lack of an independent method for controlling N\'eel vectors. Here by utilizing an antiferromagnetic insulator with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, {\alpha}-Fe2O3, we show that the N\'eel vector can be controlled with a moderate external field, which is further utilized to calibrate the current-induced magnetic dynamics. We find that the current-induced magnetoresistance change in antiferromagnets can be complicated by resistive switching that does not have a magnetic origin. By excluding non-magnetic switching and comparing the current-induced dynamics with the field-induced one, we determine the nature and magnitude of current-induced effects in Pt/{\alpha}-Fe2O3 bilayer films.