Spin-neutral currents for spintronics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that spin-neutral currents in certain antiferromagnets and metals can be harnessed for spintronics, enabling giant tunneling magnetoresistance effects even without net spin polarization.

Contribution

It reveals the potential of spin-neutral conductance in compensated antiferromagnets and metals for spintronic applications, supported by a design of a RuO₂-based AFMTJ showing large TMR.

Findings

RuO₂ exhibits spin-independent conductance with a non-spin-degenerate Fermi surface.

A RuO₂/TiO₂/RuO₂ AFMTJ achieves TMR as high as 500%.

Normal metals can be integrated into spintronic devices using this mechanism.

Abstract

Electric currents carrying a net spin polarization are widely used in spintronics, whereas globally spin-neutral currents are expected to play no role in spin-dependent phenomena. Here we show that, in contrast to this common expectation, spin-independent conductance in compensated antiferromagnets and normal metals can be efficiently exploited in spintronics, provided their magnetic space group symmetry supports a non-spin-degenerate Fermi surface. Due to their momentum-dependent spin polarization, such antiferromagnets can be used as active elements in antiferromagnetic tunnel junctions (AFMTJs) and produce a giant tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect. Using RuO$_{2}$ as a representative compensated antiferromagnet exhibiting spin-independent conductance along the [001] direction but a non-spin-degenerate Fermi surface, we design a RuO$_{2}$/TiO$_{2}$/RuO$_{2}$ (001) AFMTJ, where a globally spin-neutral charge current is controlled by the relative orientation of the N\'eel vectors of the two RuO$_{2}$ electrodes, resulting in the TMR effect as large as ~500%. These results are expanded to normal metals which can be used as a counter electrode in AFMTJs with a single antiferromagnetic layer or other elements in spintronic devices. Our work uncovers an unexplored potential of the materials with no global spin polarization for utilizing them in spintronics.