Direct imaging of current-induced antiferromagnetic switching revealing a pure thermomagnetoelastic switching mechanism

Abstract

We unravel the origin of current-induced magnetic switching of insulating antiferromagnet/heavy metal systems. We utilize concurrent transport and magneto-optical measurements to image the switching of antiferromagnetic domains in specially engineered devices of NiO/Pt bilayers. Different electrical pulsing and device geometries reveal different final states of the switching with respect to the current direction. We can explain these through simulations of the temperature induced strain and we identify the thermomagnetoelastic switching mechanism combined with thermal excitations as the origin, in which the final state is defined by the strain distributions and heat is required to switch the antiferromagnetic domains. We show that such a potentially very versatile non-contact mechanism can explain the previously reported contradicting observations of the switching final state, which were attributed to spin-orbit torque mechanisms.

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Cited by in corpus (29)

• Efficient Spin-Orbit Torques in an Antiferromagnetic Insulator with Tilted Easy Plane
• Current-driven writing process in antiferromagnetic Mn2Au for memory applications
• All-antiferromagnetic electrically controlled memory on silicon featuring large tunneling magnetoresistance
• Identification of Néel vector orientation in antiferromagnetic domains switched by currents in NiO/Pt thin films
• Direct Imaging of Electrical Switching of Antiferromagnetic Néel Order in $\alpha$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$ Epitaxial Films
• Observation of Vector Spin Seebeck Effect in a Noncollinear Antiferromagnet
• Defect-driven antiferromagnetic domain walls in CuMnAs films
• Antiferromagnetic insulatronics: spintronics in insulating 3d metal oxides with antiferromagnetic coupling
• Voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy in antiferromagnetic MgO-capped MnPt films
• Optical read-out of the Néel vector in metallic antiferromagnet Mn${}_2$Au
• Strain-induced Shape Anisotropy in Antiferromagnetic Structures
• Terahertz cavity magnon polaritons
• Thermal effects in spintronic materials and devices: an experimentalist's guide
• Laser-induced Creation of antiferromagnetic 180-degree domains in NiO/Pt bilayers
• Electrical-controllable antiferromagnet-based tunnel junction
• Thermal Contribution in the Electrical Switching Experiments with Heavy Metal / Antiferromagnet Structures
• Identifiying the domain wall spin structure in current-induced switching of antiferromagnetic NiO/Pt
• Magnetic sensitivity distribution of Hall devices in antiferromagnetic switching experiments
• Observation of Coherently Coupled Cation Spin Dynamics in an Insulating Ferrimagnetic Oxide
• Identifying Switching of Antiferromagnets by Spin-Orbit Torques
• Probing the Manipulation of Antiferromagnetic Order in CuMnAs Films Using Neutron Diffraction
• Large spin-orbit torque in a-plane $\alpha$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$/Pt bilayers
• Quadratic magneto-optical Kerr effect spectroscopy: Polarization variation method for investigation of magnetic and magneto-optical anisotropies
• Disentangling electrical switching of antiferromagnetic NiO using high magnetic fields
• Melting of magnetic order in ${\mathrm{NaOsO}}_3$ by fs laser pulses
• Interaction and collision of skyrmions in chiral antiferromagnets
• First-principles calculations of spin-orbit torques in Mn${}_2$Au/heavy-metal bilayers
• Ultrafast amplification and non-linear magneto-elastic coupling of coherent magnon modes in an antiferromagnet
• Electrical switching of antiferromagnetic CoO | Pt across the Néel temperature