2018/06/07 by Patrick Appel, Brendan J. Shields, Tobias Kosub +4 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b04681
22 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2018/06/07 · arxiv updated 2019/02/19
Antiferromagnets have recently emerged as attractive platforms for spintronics applications, offering fundamentally new functionalities compared to their ferromagnetic counterparts. While nanoscale thin film materials are key to the development of future antiferromagnetic spintronics technologies, experimental tools to explore such films on the nanoscale are still sparse. Here, we offer a solution to this technological bottleneck, by addressing the ubiquitous surface magnetisation of magnetoelectic antiferromagnets in a granular thin film sample on the nanoscale using single-spin magnetometry in combination with spin-sensitive transport experiments. Specifically, we quantitatively image the evolution of individual nanoscale antiferromagnetic domains in 200-nm thin-films of Cr2O3 in real space and across the paramagnet-to-antiferromagnet phase transition. These experiments allow us to discern key properties of the Cr2O3 thin film, including the mechanism of domain formation and the strength of exchange coupling between individual grains comprising the film. Our work offers novel insights into Cr2O3's magnetic ordering mechanism and establishes single spin magnetometry as a novel, widely applicable tool for nanoscale addressing of antiferromagnetic thin films.