Spatially reconfigurable topological textures in freestanding antiferromagnetic nanomembranes

Abstract

Antiferromagnets hosting real-space topological spin textures are promising platforms to model fundamental ultrafast phenomena and explore spintronics. However, to date, they have only been fabricated epitaxially on specific symmetry-matched crystalline substrates, to preserve their intrinsic magneto-crystalline order. This curtails their integration with dissimilar supports, markedly restricting the scope of fundamental and applied investigations. Here, we circumvent this limitation by designing detachable crystalline antiferromagnetic nanomembranes of $\alpha$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$, that can be transferred onto other desirable supports after growth. We develop transmission-based antiferromagnetic vector-mapping to show that these nanomembranes harbour rich topological phenomenology at room temperature. Moreover, we exploit their extreme flexibility to demonstrate three-dimensional reconfiguration of antiferromagnetic properties, driven locally via flexure-induced strains. This allows us to spatially design antiferromagnetic states outside their typical thermal stability window. Integration of such freestanding antiferromagnetic layers with flat or curved nanostructures could enable spin texture designs tailored by magnetoelastic-/geometric-effects in the quasi-static and dynamical regimes, opening new explorations into curvilinear antiferromagnetism and unconventional computing.

17 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Advances in the Physics of Magnetic Skyrmions and Perspective for Technology
• Phenomenology of Current-Induced Dynamics in Antiferromagnets
• Fractional antiferromagnetic skyrmion lattice induced by anisotropic couplings
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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Quantifying the Topology of Magnetic Skyrmions in three Dimensions