The electronic devices we use on a day-to-day basis are powered by electrical currents. Data processing and computation also relies on information provided by electrons. This is what we call electronics. In recent years, a new field called spintronics emerged to overcome the limitations of traditional electronics, offering a leap towards high-density data storage and ultrafast computing dynamics. Spintronics employs a different concept. Instead of store information using the charge of electrons of the materials, the spintronic approach is to exploit their magnetic moment, in other words, their spin, to store and process information – aiming to make the computers of the future more compact, fast, and sustainable.
Antiferromagnets are considered very promising materials for future spintronic applications, offering unique properties to overcome limitations posed by current systems using ferromagnets. Lack of stray fields favor denser packing and high internal frequencies could allow faster operation. However, these properties at the same time make it more difficult to operate in terms of writing information, i.e. the switching part.
Now, a study lead by researchers from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany), in collaboration with the Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo (Japan) and the ALBA Synchrotron aims to understand the underlying antiferromagnetic switching mechanisms. The study disentangles two different switching mechanisms in an antiferromagnet material -cobalt (II) oxide or CoO- when subjected to a current pulse. One is due to the fundamental spin-orbit torque and the other is a heat-induced thermomagnetoelastic effect.
Read more on the ALBA website
Image: XMLD-PEEM imaging of cobalt (II) oxide (CoO) sample after the application of high current-density pulses along different directions, revealing two different switching mechanisms. Images obtained at CIRCE beamline of the ALBA Synchrotron.