Chiral-induced switching of antiferromagnet spins in a confined nanowire

Abstract

In the development of spin-based electronic devices, a particular challenge is the manipulation of the magnetic state with high speed and low power consumption. Although research has focused on the current-induced spin–orbit torque based on strong spin–orbit coupling, the charge-based and the torque-driven devices have fundamental limitations: Joule heating, phase mismatching, and overshooting. In this work, we investigate numerically and theoretically alternative switching scenario of antiferromagnetic insulator in one-dimensional confined nanowire sandwiched with two electrodes. As the electric field could break inversion symmetry and induce Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and pseudo-dipole anisotropy, the resulting spiral texture takes symmetric or antisymmetric configuration due to additional coupling with the crystalline anisotropy. Therefore, by competing two spiral states, we show that the magnetization reversal of antiferromagnets is realized, which is valid in ferromagnetic counterpart. Our finding provides promising opportunities to realize the rapid and energy-efficient electrical manipulation of magnetization for future spin-based electronic devices. © 2019, The Author(s).