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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 47: Spin Hall Effects and Skyrmions I
MA 47.10: Talk
Thursday, March 23, 2017, 12:00–12:15, HSZ 04
Novel spin currents in non-collinear antiferromagnets — •Jakub Zelezny1, Yang Zhang1,2, Claudia Felser1, and Binghai Yan1,3 — 1Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, Germany — 2Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research, Dresden, Germany — 3Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
Many key spintronics phenomana are caused by spin currents. Here we study spin currents in non-collinear antiferromagnets Mn3Sn and Mn3Ir. It was recently demonstrated that a large spin Hall effect exists in these materials. We show by symmetry analysis and microscopic ab-initio calculations that in these antiferromagnets, also a different type of spin currents occur, which have an origin and symmetry distinct from the spin Hall effect. These spin currents are similar to spin-polarized currents in ferromagnets, however, unlike in ferromagnets, they also contain a transversal contribution (i.e., a spin current flowing in the direction transversal to the charge current). Our calculations reveal that both the spin-polarized currents and the transversal spin currents are large in the studied materials. These spin currents could have important applications since the effects that originate from the spin-polarized current in ferromagnets, like the tunneling magnetoresistance or the spin-transfer torque, will also be present in the non-collinear antiferromagnets. Furthermore, the transversal spin currents will contribute to the spin-orbit torque generated by the spin Hall effect.