8 research outputs found
Evidence for reversible control of magnetization in a ferromagnetic material via spin-orbit magnetic field
Conventional computer electronics creates a dichotomy between how information
is processed and how it is stored. Silicon chips process information by
controlling the flow of charge through a network of logic gates. This
information is then stored, most commonly, by encoding it in the orientation of
magnetic domains of a computer hard disk. The key obstacle to a more intimate
integration of magnetic materials into devices and circuit processing
information is a lack of efficient means to control their magnetization. This
is usually achieved with an external magnetic field or by the injection of
spin-polarized currents. The latter can be significantly enhanced in materials
whose ferromagnetic properties are mediated by charge carriers. Among these
materials, conductors lacking spatial inversion symmetry couple charge currents
to spin by intrinsic spin-orbit (SO) interactions, inducing nonequilibrium spin
polarization tunable by local electric fields. Here we show that magnetization
of a ferromagnet can be reversibly manipulated by the SO-induced polarization
of carrier spins generated by unpolarized currents. Specifically, we
demonstrate domain rotation and hysteretic switching of magnetization between
two orthogonal easy axes in a model ferromagnetic semiconductor.Comment: 10 pages including supplemental materia
Antiferromagnetic spintronics
Antiferromagnetic materials are magnetic inside, however, the direction of
their ordered microscopic moments alternates between individual atomic sites.
The resulting zero net magnetic moment makes magnetism in antiferromagnets
invisible on the outside. It also implies that if information was stored in
antiferromagnetic moments it would be insensitive to disturbing external
magnetic fields, and the antiferromagnetic element would not affect
magnetically its neighbors no matter how densely the elements were arranged in
a device. The intrinsic high frequencies of antiferromagnetic dynamics
represent another property that makes antiferromagnets distinct from
ferromagnets. The outstanding question is how to efficiently manipulate and
detect the magnetic state of an antiferromagnet. In this article we give an
overview of recent works addressing this question. We also review studies
looking at merits of antiferromagnetic spintronics from a more general
perspective of spin-ransport, magnetization dynamics, and materials research,
and give a brief outlook of future research and applications of
antiferromagnetic spintronics.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure
Spin transport and spin torque in antiferromagnetic devices
Ferromagnets are key materials for sensing and memory applications. In contrast, antiferromagnets which represent the more common form of magnetically ordered materials, have found less practical application beyond their use for establishing reference magnetic orientations via exchange bias. This might change in the future due to the recent progress in materials research and discoveries of antiferromagnetic spintronic phenomena suitable for device applications. Experimental demonstration of the electrical switching and detection of the Néel order open a route towards memory devices based on antiferromagnets. Apart from the radiation and magnetic-field hardness, memory cells fabricated from antiferromagnets can be inherently multilevel, which could be used for neuromorphic computing. Switching speeds attainable in antiferromagnets far exceed those of ferromagnetic and semiconductor memory technologies. Here we review the recent progress in electronic spin-transport and spin-torque phenomena in antiferromagnets that are dominantly of the relativistic quantum mechanical origin. We discuss their utility in pure antiferromagnetic or hybrid ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic memory devices
Spin–orbit-driven ferromagnetic resonance
Ferromagnetic resonance is the most widely used technique for characterizing ferromagnetic materials. However, its use is generally restricted to wafer-scale samples or specific micro-magnetic devices, such as spin valves, which have a spatially varying magnetization profile and where ferromagnetic resonance can be induced by an alternating current owing to angular momentum transfer. Here we introduce a form of ferromagnetic resonance in which an electric current oscillating at microwave frequencies is used to create an effective magnetic field in the magnetic material being probed, which makes it possible to characterize individual nanoscale samples with uniform magnetization profiles. The technique takes advantage of the microscopic non-collinearity of individual electron spins arising from spin–orbit coupling and bulk or structural inversion asymmetry in the band structure of the sample. We characterize lithographically patterned (Ga,Mn)As and (Ga,Mn)(As,P) nanoscale bars, including broadband measurements of resonant damping as a function of frequency, and measurements of anisotropy as a function of bar width and strain. In addition, vector magnetometry on the driving fields reveals contributions with the symmetry of both the Dresselhaus and Rashba spin–orbit interactions