Probing the Manipulation of Antiferromagnetic Order in CuMnAs Films Using Neutron Diffraction

TL;DR

This study uses neutron diffraction to investigate how magnetic fields manipulate the antiferromagnetic order in CuMnAs thin films, revealing a spin-flop transition and providing quantitative insights into the magnetic behavior.

Contribution

It demonstrates the use of neutron diffraction to quantitatively analyze the spin-flop transition in ultrathin CuMnAs films, correlating magnetic and transport measurements.

Findings

Suppression of magnetic (100) peak under magnetic fields in 20 nm films

Observation of spin-flop transition in thin CuMnAs layers

Neutron diffraction provides quantitative measurement of spin-flop extent

Abstract

We describe measurements of the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy and spin-flop rotation of the N\'eel vector in antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin films using neutron diffraction. The suppression of the magnetic (100) peak under magnetic fields is observed for films as thin as 20 nm indicating that they undergo a spin-flop transition. Good agreement is found between neutron diffraction and electron transport measurements of the spin-flop rotation in the same layer, with a similar shape and hysteresis of the obtained curves, while the neutron measurements provide a quantitative determination of the spin flop extent throughout the antiferromagnet layer.