Antiferromagnetic spintronics: From metals to functional oxides

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic spintronics exploits unique properties of antiferromagnetic materials to create new and improved functionalities in future spintronic applications. Here, we briefly review the experimental efforts in our group to unravel spin transport properties in antiferromagnetic materials. Our investigations were initially focused on metallic antiferromagnets, where the first evidence of antiferromagnetic spin-transfer torque was discovered. Because of the lack of metallic antiferromagnets, we then shifted towards antiferromagnetic Mott insulators, where a plethora of transport phenomena was found. For instance, we observed a very large anisotropic magnetoresistance, which can be used to detect the magnetic state of an antiferromagnet. We also observed reversible resistive switching and now provide unequivocal evidence that the resistive switching is associated with structural distortions driven by an electric field. Our findings support the potential of electrically controlled functional oxides for various memory technologies.