2018/02/22 by Chengliang Lu, Bin Gao, Haowen Wang +5 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Anisotropy #Antiferromagnetism #Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides #Magnetic field #Magnetocrystalline anisotropy #Magnetoresistance #Multiferroics and related materials #Spintronics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/adfm.201706589
published as Adv. Funct. Mater. 28, 1706589 (2018)
openalex publication_date 2018/02/22 · openalex created_date 2018/03/29 · arxiv created 2018/05/07 · arxiv updated 2018/05/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract Antiferromagnetic spintronics actively introduces new principles of magnetic memory, in which the most fundamental spin‐dependent phenomena, i.e., anisotropic magnetoresistance effects, are governed by an antiferromagnet instead of a ferromagnet. A general scenario of the antiferromagnetic anisotropic magnetoresistance effects mainly stems from the magnetocrystalline anisotropy related to spin–orbit coupling. Here magnetic field driven contour rotation of the fourfold anisotropic magnetoresistance in bare antiferromagnetic Sr 2 IrO 4 /SrTiO 3 (001) thin films hosting a strong spin–orbit coupling induced J eff = 1/2 Mott state is demonstrated. Concurrently, an intriguing minimal in the magnetoresistance emerges. Through first principles calculations, the bandgap engineering due to rotation of the Ir isospins is revealed to be responsible for these emergent phenomena, different from the traditional scenario where relatively more conductive state is obtained usually when magnetic field is applied along the magnetic easy axis. These findings demonstrate a new efficient route, i.e., via the novel J eff = 1/2 state, to realize controllable anisotropic magnetoresistance in antiferromagnetic materials.