Long-range, non-local switching of spin textures in a frustrated antiferromagnet

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic spintronics is an emerging area of quantum technologies that leverage the coupling between spin and orbital degrees of freedom in exotic materials. Spin-orbit interactions allow spin or angular momentum to be injected via electrical stimuli to manipulate the spin texture of a material, enabling the storage of information and energy. In general, the physical process is intrinsically local: spin is carried by an electrical current, imparted into the magnetic system, and the spin texture will then rotate in the region of current flow. In this study, we show that spin information can be transported and stored “non-locally" in the material Fe_xNbS₂. We propose that collective modes can manipulate the spin texture away from the flowing current, an effect amplified by strong magnetoelastic coupling of the ordered state. This suggests a novel way to store and transport spin information in strongly spin-orbit coupled magnetic systems.

Several recent works have demonstrated current based control of antiferromagnetic order, with the potential that such switching could be used for information processing and storage. Here, Haley et al demonstrate that in Fe_xNbS₂, this switching is non-local, with magnetic order changing due to an applied current at distances much larger than the spin diffusion length in the material.