Electrical switching of antiferromagnetic Mn2Au and CuMnAs
Markus Meinert (Universitt Bielefeld)

Electrical manipulation of antiferromagnets with specific symmetries offers the prospect of creating novel, antiferromagnetic spintronic devices [1]. Such devices aim to make use of the insensitivity to external magnetic fields and the ultrafast dynamics at the picosecond timescale intrinsic to antiferromagnets. The possibility to electrically switch antiferromagnets was first predicted for Mn2Au [2] and then experimentally observed in tetragonal CuMnAs [3].

In this talk, I will start with a brief overview over the experimental state-of-the-art of the electrical switching of antiferromagnets. A more detailed discussion of our work on the electrical switching of Mn2Au and CuMnAs will provide insight into the importance of the thermal activation for the switching and its stochastic nature. A quantitative kinetic model of the switching was developed and shows good agreement with our experimental data. This gives us a rational design tool at hand for the understanding and optimization of devices based on electrically switchable antiferromagnets. The model analysis further shows that the electrically set magnetization state of Mn2Au is long-term stable at room temperature, paving the way for practical applications in memory devices [4]. We further demonstate that switching can be observed in magnetron-sputtered CuMnAs thin films with rather poor crystalline quality and does not seem to rely on excellent crystal quality, in agreement with theoretical expectations.

[1] O. Gomonay et al., Phys. Status Solidi RRL RRL 11, 1700022 (2017)
[2] J. Zelezny et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 157201 (2014)
[3] P. Wadley et al., Science 351, 587–590 (2016)
[4] M. Meinert et al., Phys. Rev. Applied 9, 064040 (2018)