Systematic study of nonmagnetic resistance changes due to electrical pulsing in single metal layers and metal/antiferromagnet bilayers

Abstract

Intense current pulses are often required to operate microelectronic and spintronic devices. Notably, strong current pulses have been shown to induce magnetoresistance changes attributed to domain reorientation in antiferromagnet/heavy metal bilayers and non-centrosymmetric antiferromagnets. In such cases, nonmagnetic resistivity changes may dominate over signatures of antiferromagnetic switching. We report systematic measurements of the current-induced changes of the transverse and longitudinal resistance of Pt and Pt/NiO layers deposited on insulating substrates, namely Si/SiO${}_2$, Si/Si${}_3$N${}_4$, and Al${}_2$O${}_3$. We identify the range of pulse amplitude and length that can be used without affecting the resistance and show that it increases with the device size and thermal diffusivity of the substrate. No significant difference is observed in the resistive response of Pt and NiO/Pt devices, thus precluding evidence on the switching of antiferromagnetic domains in NiO. The variation of the transverse resistance is associated to a thermally-activated process in Pt that decays following a double exponential law with characteristic timescales of a few minutes to hours. We use a Wheatstone bridge model to discriminate between positive and negative resistance changes, highlighting competing annealing and electromigration effects. Depending on the training of the devices, the transverse resistance can either increase or decrease between current pulses. Further, we elucidate the origin of the nonmonotonic resistance baseline, which we attribute to training effects combined with the asymmetric distribution of the current. These results provide insight into the origin of current-induced resistance changes in metal layers and a guide to minimize nonmagnetic artifacts in switching experiments of antiferromagnets.

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• Antiferromagnetic spintronics
• Antiferromagnetic spintronics
• Current-induced spin-orbit torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems
• Electrical switching of an antiferromagnet
• Theory of spin Hall magnetoresistance
• Relativistic Neel-order fields induced by electrical current in antiferromagnets
• Writing and Reading antiferromagnetic Mn${}_2$Au: Néel spin-orbit torques and large anisotropic magnetoresistance
• Electrical Manipulation of a Topological Antiferromagnetic State
• Antidamping torque-induced switching in biaxial antiferromagnetic insulators
• Antiferromagnetic domain wall motion driven by spin-orbit torques
• Spin Hall magnetoresistance in antiferromagnet/heavy-metal heterostructures
• Electrical switching of antiferromagnetic Mn${}_2$Au and the role of thermal activation
• Effect of Joule heating in current-driven domain wall motion
• Magneto-Optical Detection of the Spin Hall Effect in Pt and W Thin Films
• Mechanism of Néel order switching in antiferromagnetic thin films revealed by magnetotransport and direct imaging
• Antiferromagnetic Domain Wall Motion Induced by Spin Waves
• Current-polarity dependent manipulation of antiferromagnetic domains
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• Relaxation decoupling in metallic glassy state
• Tunable sign change of spin Hall magnetoresistance in Pt/NiO/YIG structures
• Full angular dependence of the spin Hall and ordinary magnetoresistance in epitaxial antiferromagnetic NiO(001)/Pt thin films
• Electrical switching in a magnetically intercalated transition metal dichalcogenide
• Quantitative Study on Current-Induced Effect in an Antiferromagnet Insulator/Pt Bilayer Film
• Spin Seebeck imaging of spin-torque switching in antiferromagnetic Pt/NiO heterostructures
• Concurrent magneto-optical imaging and magneto-transport readout of electrical switching of insulating antiferromagnetic thin films
• Spin-orbit torque induced electrical switching of antiferromagnetic MnN
• Resistive contribution in electrical switching experiments with antiferromagnets
• Current-induced fragmentation of antiferromagnetic domains
• Low-Energy Switching of Antiferromagnetic CuMnAs/ GaP Using sub-10 Nanosecond Current Pulses

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Time-dependent multistate switching of topological antiferromagnetic order in Mn${}_3$Sn
• Spin-Orbit Torque Switching of Noncollinear Antiferromagnetic Antiperovskite Manganese Nitride Mn${}_3$GaN
• Mapping the intrinsic photocurrent streamlines through micromagnetic heterostructure devices
• Thermal Contribution in the Electrical Switching Experiments with Heavy Metal / Antiferromagnet Structures
• Magnetic sensitivity distribution of Hall devices in antiferromagnetic switching experiments
• Vector spin Seebeck effect and spin swapping effect in antiferromagnetic insulators with non-collinear spin structure