Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme
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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik
HL 52: Spintronics (incl. quantum dynamics) (Joint session of HL, MA and TT, organized by MA)
HL 52.10: Talk
Wednesday, March 9, 2016, 12:00–12:15, H32
Spin-orbit torque in antiferromagnets — •Jakub Zelezny1, Frank Freimuth2, Yuriy Mokrousov2, Jacob Gayles3, Jairo Sinova3, and Tomas Jungwirth3 — 1Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic — 2Forschungszentrum Julich and JARA, Germany — 3Institut fur Physik, Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz, Germany
Antiferromagnets are common in nature and just like ferromagnets posses a long-range magnetic order. Unlike ferromagnets though, they have found little practical applications so far, primarily due to their lack of total magnetization. However, development of spintronics opens up ways how they could be used. Antiferromagnets have some advantages over ferromagnets, in particular ultrafast magnetization dynamics and wide range of materials available, including many semiconductors. One of the key problems for application of antiferromagnets in spintronics remains manipulation of the spin-axis. Recently we have predicted that in some bulk antiferromagnets, electrical current can effectively manipulate the magnetic moments [1]. Switching of an antiferromagnet using this method have recently been observed experimentally [2]. The effect is analogous to the spin-orbit torque in ferromagnets. Here we discuss the symmetry of the torques, especially the necessary conditions for their existence and show results of microscopic calculation of the torques in various antiferromagnets.
[1] J. Železný et al., PRL 113 (15), 157201 [2] P. Wadley et al., Science, to be published, arXiv:1503.03765