Electrical switching of an antiferromagnet

TLDR

Spintronics uses electron spin instead of charge, and while magnetic memory traditionally relies on ferromagnets, controlling antiferromagnetic ordering remains challenging. The study proposes using antiferromagnets to avoid field‑induced erasure of encoded information. The authors demonstrated that directing currents along specific axes in CuMnAs thin films reorients its antiferromagnetic domains, enabling electrical switching. Wadley et al.

Abstract

Manipulating a stubborn magnet Spintronics is an alternative to conventional electronics, based on using the electron's spin rather than its charge. Spintronic devices, such as magnetic memory, have traditionally used ferromagnetic materials to encode the 1's and 0's of the binary code. A weakness of this approach—that strong magnetic fields can erase the encoded information—could be avoided by using antiferromagnets instead of ferromagnets. But manipulating the magnetic ordering of antiferromagnets is tricky. Now, Wadley et al. have found a way (see the Perspective by Marrows). Running currents along specific directions in the thin films of the antiferromagnetic compound CuMnAs reoriented the magnetic domains in the material. Science , this issue p. 587 ; see also p. 558