Twist-assisted all-antiferromagnetic tunnel junction in the atomic limit

Yuliang Chen, Kartik Samanta, Naafis A. Shahed, Haojie Zhang, Chi Fang, Arthur Ernst, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal and Stuart S. P. Parkin ()
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Yuliang Chen: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Kartik Samanta: University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Naafis A. Shahed: University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Haojie Zhang: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Chi Fang: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Arthur Ernst: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
Evgeny Y. Tsymbal: University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Stuart S. P. Parkin: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics

Nature, 2024, vol. 632, issue 8027, 1045-1051

Abstract: Abstract Antiferromagnetic spintronics1,2 shows great potential for high-density and ultrafast information devices. Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), a key spintronic memory component that are typically formed from ferromagnetic materials, have seen rapid developments very recently using antiferromagnetic materials3,4. Here we demonstrate a twisting strategy for constructing all-antiferromagnetic tunnel junctions down to the atomic limit. By twisting two bilayers of CrSBr, a 2D antiferromagnet (AFM), a more than 700% nonvolatile tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio is shown at zero field (ZF) with the entire twisted stack acting as the tunnel barrier. This is determined by twisting two CrSBr monolayers for which the TMR is shown to be derived from accumulative coherent tunnelling across the individual CrSBr monolayers. The dependence of the TMR on the twist angle is calculated from the electron-parallel momentum-dependent decay across the twisted monolayers. This is in excellent agreement with our experiments that consider twist angles that vary from 0° to 90°. Moreover, we also find that the temperature dependence of the TMR is, surprisingly, much weaker for the twisted as compared with the untwisted junctions, making the twisted junctions even more attractive for applications. Our work shows that it is possible to push nonvolatile magnetic information storage to the atomically thin limit.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07818-x

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