Anisotropic long-range spin transport in canted antiferromagnetic orthoferrite YFeO3

Abstract

In antiferromagnets, the efficient transport of spin-waves has until now only been observed in the insulating antiferromagnet hematite, where circularly (or a superposition of pairs of linearly) polarized spin-waves diffuse over long distances. Here, we report long-distance spin-transport in the antiferromagnetic orthoferrite YFeO₃, where a different transport mechanism is enabled by the combined presence of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and externally applied fields. The magnon decay length is shown to exceed hundreds of nanometers, in line with resonance measurements that highlight the low magnetic damping. We observe a strong anisotropy in the magnon decay lengths that we can attribute to the role of the magnon group velocity in the transport of spin-waves in antiferromagnets. This unique mode of transport identified in YFeO₃ opens up the possibility of a large and technologically relevant class of materials, i.e., canted antiferromagnets, for long-distance spin transport.

Antiferromagnets have attracted interest for spin-based information processing due to their resilience to stray magnetic fields and extremely rapid spin dynamics, however, long range spin wave transport has only been shown in one type of antiferromagnet thus far. Here, Das et al demonstrate long range spin wave transport in antiferromagnetic YFeO3.