Electrical switching of an antiferromagnet
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- 5 February 2016
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 351 (6273), 587-590
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab1031
Abstract
Antiferromagnets are hard to control by external magnetic fields because of the alternating directions of magnetic moments on individual atoms and the resulting zero net magnetization. However, relativistic quantum mechanics allows for generating current-induced internal fields whose sign alternates with the periodicity of the antiferromagnetic lattice. Using these fields, which couple strongly to the antiferromagnetic order, we demonstrate room-temperature electrical switching between stable configurations in antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin-film devices by applied current with magnitudes of order 106 ampere per square centimeter. Electrical writing is combined in our solid-state memory with electrical readout and the stored magnetic state is insensitive to and produces no external magnetic field perturbations, which illustrates the unique merits of antiferromagnets for spintronics.Keywords
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Funding Information
- European Research Council (268066)
- Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic (LM2011026)
- Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (14-37427)
- UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K027808/1)
- EU 7th Framework Programme (REGPOT-CT-2013-316014, FP7-People-2012-ITN-316657)
- HGF Programme (VH-NG 513)
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SPP 1568)
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