Imaging Antiferromagnetic Domains in Nickel-oxide Thin Films by Magneto-optical Voigt Effect

Abstract

Recent demonstrations of electrical detection and manipulation of antiferromagnets (AFMs) have opened new opportunities towards robust and ultrafast spintronics devices. However, it is difficult to establish the connection between the spin-transport behavior and the microscopic AFM domain states due to the lack of the real-time AFM domain imaging technique under the electric field. Here we report a significant Voigt rotation up to 60 mdeg in thin NiO(001) films at room temperature. Such large Voigt rotation allows us to directly observe AFM domains in thin-film NiO by utilizing a wide-field optical microscope. Further complementary XMLD-PEEM measurement confirms that the Voigt contrast originates from the NiO AFM order. We examine the domain pattern evolution at a wide range of temperature and with the application of external magnetic field. Comparing to large-scale-facility techniques such as the X-ray photoemission electron microscopy, the use with a wide-field, tabletop optical imaging method enables straightforward access to domain configurations of single-layer AFMs.

arXiv comment17 pages , 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (15)

• Direct imaging of current-induced antiferromagnetic switching revealing a pure thermomagnetoelastic switching mechanism
• Identification of Néel vector orientation in antiferromagnetic domains switched by currents in NiO/Pt thin films
• Concurrent magneto-optical imaging and magneto-transport readout of electrical switching of insulating antiferromagnetic thin films
• Antiferromagnetic insulatronics: spintronics in insulating 3d metal oxides with antiferromagnetic coupling
• Optical read-out of the Néel vector in metallic antiferromagnet Mn${}_2$Au
• Optical imaging of antiferromagnetic domains in ultrathin CoO(001) films
• Ultrafast manipulation of the NiO antiferromagnetic order via sub-gap optical excitation
• Observation of three-state nematicity and domain evolution in atomically-thin antiferromagnetic NiPS3
• Role of NiO in the nonlocal spin transport through thin NiO films on Y${}_3$Fe${}_5$O${}_{12}$
• Ultrafast reorientation of the Néel vector in antiferromagnetic Dirac semimetals
• Cubic magneto-optic Kerr effect in Ni(111) thin films with and without twinning
• Magnetic sensitivity distribution of Hall devices in antiferromagnetic switching experiments
• Identifiying the domain wall spin structure in current-induced switching of antiferromagnetic NiO/Pt
• Quadratic magneto-optical Kerr effect spectroscopy: Polarization variation method for investigation of magnetic and magneto-optical anisotropies
• Cubic magneto-optic Kerr effect in Co(111) thin films