2018/12/31 by Xianzhe Chen, Xiaofeng Zhou, Chen, Xianzhe +22
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Memory and Neural Computing #FOS: Physical sciences #Magnetic properties of thin films #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Shape Memory Alloy Transformations #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1812.11868
13 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2018/12/31 · openalex publication_date 2018/12/31 · arxiv updated 2019/01/01 · openalex created_date 2019/01/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Electric field control of magnetic anisotropy in ferromagnets has been intensively pursued in spintronics to achieve efficient memory and computing devices with low energy consumption. Compared with ferromagnets, antiferromagnets hold huge potential in high-density information storage for their ultrafast spin dynamics and vanishingly small stray field. However, the switching of magnetic anisotropy of antiferromagnets via electric field remains elusive. Here we use ferroelastic strain from piezoelectric materials to switch the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy and the Néel order reversibly in antiferromagnetic Mn2Au films with an electric field of only a few kV/cm at room temperature. Owing to the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy, a ratchet-like switching behavior driven by the Néel spin-orbit torque is observed in the Mn2Au, which can be reversed by electric fields.