Giant field-like torque by the out-of-plane magnetic spin Hall effect in a topological antiferromagnet

Kouta Kondou (), Hua Chen, Takahiro Tomita, Muhammad Ikhlas, Tomoya Higo, Allan H. MacDonald, Satoru Nakatsuji and YoshiChika Otani ()
Additional contact information
Kouta Kondou: RIKEN, Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)
Hua Chen: Colorado State University
Takahiro Tomita: CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi
Muhammad Ikhlas: CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi
Tomoya Higo: CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi
Allan H. MacDonald: University of Texas at Austin
Satoru Nakatsuji: CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi
YoshiChika Otani: RIKEN, Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Spin-orbit torques (SOT) enable efficient electrical control of the magnetic state of ferromagnets, ferrimagnets and antiferromagnets. However, the conventional SOT has severe limitation that only in-plane spins accumulate near the surface, whether interpreted as a spin Hall effect (SHE) or as an Edelstein effect. Such a SOT is not suitable for controlling perpendicular magnetization, which would be more beneficial for realizing low-power-consumption memory devices. Here we report the observation of a giant magnetic-field-like SOT in a topological antiferromagnet Mn3Sn, whose direction and size can be tuned by changing the order parameter direction of the antiferromagnet. To understand the magnetic SHE (MSHE)- and the conventional SHE-induced SOTs on an equal footing, we formulate them as interface spin-electric-field responses and analyzed using a macroscopic symmetry analysis and a complementary microscopic quantum kinetic theory. In this framework, the large out-of-plane spin accumulation due to the MSHE has an inter-band origin and is likely to be caused by the large momentum-dependent spin splitting in Mn3Sn. Our work demonstrates the unique potential of antiferromagnetic Weyl semimetals in overcoming the limitations of conventional SOTs and in realizing low-power spintronics devices with new functionalities.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26453-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-26453-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26453-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().