Laser-induced Creation of antiferromagnetic 180-degree domains in NiO/Pt bilayers
arXiv:2210.11009 · doi:10.1002/adfm.202213536
Abstract
We demonstrate how the antiferromagnetic order in heterostructures of NiO/Pt thin films can be modified by optical pulses. We irradiate our samples with laser light and identify an optically induced creation of antiferromagnetic domains by imaging the created domain structure utilizing the X-ray magnetic linear dichroism effect. We study the effect of different laser polarizations on the domain formation and identify a polarization-independent creation of 180° domain walls and domains with 180° different Néel vector orientation. By varying the irradiation parameters, we determine the switching mechanism to be thermally induced and demonstrate the reversibility. We thus demonstrate experimentally the possibility to optically create antiferromagnetic domains, an important step towards future functionalization of all optical switching mechanisms in antiferromagnets.
References in corpus (10)
- Writing and Reading antiferromagnetic MnAu: Néel spin-orbit torques and large anisotropic magnetoresistance
- Spin Oscillations in Antiferromagnetic NiO Triggered by Circularly Polarized Light
- Negative spin Hall magnetoresistance of Pt on the bulk easy-plane antiferromagnet NiO
- Ultrafast phononic switching of magnetization
- Optical control of magnetization of micron-size domains in antiferromagnetic NiO single crystals
- Direct imaging of current-induced antiferromagnetic switching revealing a pure thermomagnetoelastic switching mechanism
- Atomically sharp domain walls in an antiferromagnet
- Identification of Néel vector orientation in antiferromagnetic domains switched by currents in NiO/Pt thin films
- Ultrafast coherent all-optical switching of an antiferromagnet with the inverse Faraday effect
- Strain-induced Shape Anisotropy in Antiferromagnetic Structures