We develop a low-temperature, long-wavelength theory for the interfacial spin Seebeck effect (SSE) in easy-axis antiferromagnets. The field-induced spin-flop (SF) transition of Néel order is associated with a qualitative change in SSE behavior: Below SF, there are two spin carriers with opposite magnetic moments, with the carriers polarized along the field forming a majority magnon band. Above SF, the low-energy, ferromagnetic-like mode has magnetic moment opposite the field. This results in a sign change of the SSE across SF, which agrees with recent measurements on Cr$_2$O$_3$/Pt and Cr$_2$O$_3$/Ta devices [Li $\textit{et al.,}$ $\textit{Nature}$ $\textbf{578,}$ 70 (2020)]. In our theory, SSE is due to a Néel spin current below SF and a magnetic spin current above SF. Using the ratio of the associated Néel to magnetic spin-mixing conductances as a single constant fitting parameter, we reproduce the field dependence of the experimental data and partially the temperature dependence of the relative SSE jump across SF.
We investigate the antiferromagnetic spin Seebeck effect across the spin-flop transition in a numerical simulation based on the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation for a bilayer of a uniaxial insulating antiferromagnet and an adjacent metal. By directly simulating the rate of change of the conduction-electron spin density ${\bf s}$ in the adjacent metal layer, we demonstrate that a sign reversal of the antiferromagnetic spin Seebeck effect across the spin-flop transition occurs when the interfacial coupling of ${\bf s}$ to the staggered magnetization ${\bf n}$ of the antiferromagnet domina…
Our joint theoretical and computer experimental study of heat-to-spin conversion reveals that noncollinear antiferromagnetic insulators are promising materials for generating magnon spin currents upon application of a temperature gradient: they exhibit spin Seebeck and spin Nernst effects. Using Kubo theory and spin dynamics simulations, we explicitly evaluate these effects in a single kagome sheet of potassium iron jarosite, KFe$_3$(OH)$_6$(SO$_4$)$_2$, and predict a spin Seebeck conversion factor of $0.2 μ\mathrm{V}/\mathrm{K}$ at a temperature of $20 \mathrm{K}$.
We report on the observation of the spin Seebeck effect in antiferromagnetic MnF$_2$. A device scale on-chip heater is deposited on a bilayer of Pt (4 nm)/MnF$_2$ (110) (30 nm) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on a MgF$_2$ (110) substrate. Using Pt as a spin detector layer it is possible to measure thermally generated spin current from MnF$_2$ through the inverse spin Hall effect. The low temperature (2 - 80 K) and high magnetic field (up to 140 kOe) regime is explored. A clear spin flop transition corresponding to the sudden rotation of antiferromagnetic spins out of the easy axis is observed …
Antiferromagnetic insulators can become active spintronics components by controlling and detecting their dynamics via spin currents in adjacent metals. This cross-talk occurs via spin-transfer and spin-pumping, phenomena that have been predicted to be as strong in antiferromagnets as in ferromagnets. Here, we demonstrate that a temperature gradient drives a significant heat flow from magnons in antiferromagnetic insulators to electrons in adjacent normal metals. The same coefficients as in the spin-transfer and spin-pumping processes also determine the thermal conductance. However, in contrast…
We investigate spin transport by thermally excited spin waves in an antiferromagnetic insulator. Starting from a stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert phenomenology, we obtain the out-of-equilibrium spin-wave properties. In linear response to spin biasing and a temperature gradient, we compute the spin transport through a normal metal$|$antiferromagnet$|$normal metal heterostructure. We show that the spin conductance diverges as one approaches the spin-flop transition; this enhancement of the conductance should be readily observable by sweeping the magnetic field across the spin-flop transition. …
We present the detection of the spin-flop transition in the antiferromagnetic van der Waals material MnPS3 via thermally generated nonlocal magnon transport using permalloy detector strips. The inverse anomalous spin Hall effect has the unique power to detect an out-of-plane spin accumulation which enables us to detect magnons with an out-of-plane spin polarization; in contrast to strips of high spin-orbit material such as Pt which only possess the spin Hall effect and are only sensitive to an in-plane spin polarization of the spin accumulation. We show that nonlocal magnon transport is able t…
In the absence of an external magnetic field and a spin-polarized charge current, an antiferromagnetic system supports two degenerate magnon modes. An applied thermal bias activates the magnetic dynamics, leading to a magnon flow from the hot to the cold edge (magnonic spin Seebeck current). Both degenerate bands contribute to the magnon current but the orientations of the magnetic moments underlying the magnons are opposite in different bands. Therefore, while the magnon current is nonzero, the net spin current is zero.
We have studied thermally driven magnon spin transport (spin Seebeck effect, SSE) in heterostructures of antiferromagnetic $α$-$\mathrm{Cr_2O_3}$ and Pt at low temperatures. Monitoring the amplitude of the local and nonlocal SSE signals as a function of temperature, we found that both decrease with increasing temperature and disappear above 100 K and 20 K, respectively. Additionally, both SSE signals show a tendency to saturate at low temperatures. The nonlocal SSE signal decays exponentially for intermediate injector-detector separation, consistent with magnon spin current transport in the re…
We develop a theory of the spin Seebeck effect (SSE) in paramagnets as well as in antiferromagnets at elevated temperatures where the classical limit of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem is applicable. Employing dissipative stochastic models that are valid at these temperatures, we calculate the SSE signal, and we find that both the paramagnetic SSE and the antiferromagnetic SSE are expressed by a single equation that is proportional to the external magnetic field times the spin susceptibility of the magnet. The present result suggests the appearance of a cusp structure at the Neel temperatu…
Spin waves in antiferromagnetic materials have great potential for next-generation magnonic technologies. However, their properties and their dependence on the type of ground-state antiferromagnetic structure are still open questions. Here, we investigate theoretically spin waves in one- and two-dimensional model systems with a focus on noncollinear antiferromagnetic textures such as spin spirals and skyrmions of opposite topological charges. We address in particular the nonreciprocal spin excitations recently measured in bulk antiferromagnet $α$--$\text{Cu}_2\text{V}_2\text{O}_7$ utilizing in…
Magnetocrystalline anisotropy is essential in the physics of antiferromagnets and commonly treated as a constant, not depending on an external magnetic field. However, we demonstrate that in CoO the anisotropy should necessarily depend on the magnetic field, which is shown by the spin Hall magnetoresistance of the CoO $|$ Pt device. Below the Néel temperature CoO reveals a spin-flop transition at 240 K at 7.0 T, above which a hysteresis in the angular dependence of magnetoresistance unexpectedly persists up to 30 T. This behavior is shown to agree with the presence of the unquenched orbital mo…
We theoretically propose a nonreciprocal spin Seebeck effect, i.e., nonreciprocal spin transport generated by a temperature gradient, in antiferromagnetic insulators with broken inversion symmetry. We find that nonreciprocity in antiferromagnets has rich properties not expected in ferromagnets. In particular, we show that polar antiferromagnets, in which the crystal lacks the spatial inversion symmetry, exhibit perfect nonreciprocity --- one-way spin current flow irrespective of the direction of the temperature gradient. We also show that nonpolar centrosymmetric crystals can exhibit nonrecipr…
We describe measurements of the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy and spin-flop rotation of the Néel vector in antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin films using neutron diffraction. The suppression of the magnetic (100) peak under magnetic fields is observed for films as thin as 20 nm indicating that they undergo a spin-flop transition. Good agreement is found between neutron diffraction and electron transport measurements of the spin-flop rotation in the same layer, with a similar shape and hysteresis of the obtained curves, while the neutron measurements provide a quantitative determination of the spin f…
The interplay between spin and heat currents at magnetic insulator|nonmagnetic metal interfaces has been a subject of much scrutiny because of both fundamental physics and the promise for technological applications. While ferrimagnetic and, more recently, antiferromagnetic systems have been extensively investigated, a theory generalizing the heat-to-spin interconversion in noncollinear magnets is still lacking. Here, we establish a general framework for thermally-driven spin transport at the interface between a noncollinear magnet and a normal metal. Modeling the interfacial coupling between l…
We have studied the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect in a polar antiferromagnet $α$-Cu$_{2}$V$_{2}$O$_{7}$ in contact with a Pt film. Below the antiferromagnetic transition temperature of $α$-Cu$_{2}$V$_{2}$O$_{7}$, spin Seebeck voltages whose magnetic field dependence is similar to that reported in antiferromagnetic MnF$_{2}$$\mid$Pt bilayers are observed. Though a small weak-ferromagnetic moment appears owing to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in $α$-Cu$_{2}$V$_{2}$O$_{7}$, the magnetic field dependence of spin Seebeck voltages is found to be irrelevant to the weak ferromagnetic moment…
Magnon spin transport in a metal-antiferromagnetic insulator-ferromagnetic insulator heterostructure is considered. The spin current is generated via the spin Seebeck effect and in the limit of clean sample where the effects of interface imperfections and lattice defects are excluded. For NiO as an antiferromagnetic insulator we have a magnetic order of antiferromagnetically combined planes which are internally in ferromagnetic order. We find that the sign of the spin current depends on the magnetization direction of the plane next to the metal resulting in an even-odd effect for the spin curr…
The magnetic state of atomically thin semiconducting layered antiferromagnets such as CrI$_3$ and CrCl$_3$ can be probed by forming tunnel barriers and measuring their resistance as a function of magnetic field ($H$) and temperature ($T$). This is possible because the tunneling magnetoresistance originates from a spin-filtering effect sensitive to the relative orientation of the magnetization in different layers, i.e., to the magnetic state of the multilayers. For systems in which antiferromagnetism occurs within an individual layer, however, no spin-filtering occurs: it is unclear whether thi…
Easy axis antiferromagnets are robust against external magnetic fields of moderate strength. Spin reorientations in strong fields can provide an insight into more subtle properties of antiferromagnetic materials, which are often hidden by their high ground state symmetry. Here, we investigate theoretically effects of curvature in ring-shaped antiferromagnetic achiral anisotropic spin chains in strong magnetic fields. We identify the geometry-governed helimagnetic phase transition above the spin-flop field between vortex and onion states. The curvature-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction …
Quantum (step-like) magnetization curves are studies for a spin pair with antiferromagnetic coupling in the presence of a magnetic field parallel to the easy axis of the magnetic anisotropy. The consideration is done both analytically and numerically for a wide range of the anisotropy constants and spins up to $S \gtrsim 100$. Depending on the origin of the anisotropy (exchange or single-ion), the magnetization curve can demonstrate the jumps more than unity and the concentration of the unit jumps in a narrow range of the field. We also point the region of the problem parameters, where the beh…
Antiferromagnets may exhibit spin superfluidity since the dipole interaction is weak. We seek to establish that this phenomenon occurs in insulators such as NiO, which is a good spin conductor according to previous studies. We investigate nonlocal spin transport in a planar antiferromagnetic insulator with a weak uniaxial anisotropy. The anisotropy hinders spin superfluidity by creating a substantial threshold that the current must overcome. Nevertheless, we show that applying a high magnetic field removes this obstacle near the spin-flop transition of the antiferromagnet. Importantly, the spi…
We demonstrate theoretically that the thermal Hall effect of magnons in collinear antiferromagnetic insulators is an indicator of magnetic and topological phase transitions in the magnon spectrum. The transversal heat current of magnons caused by a thermal gradient is calculated for an antiferromagnet on a honeycomb lattice. An applied magnetic field drives the system from the antiferromagnetic phase via a spin-flop phase into the field-polarized phase. Besides these magnetic phase transitions we find topological phase transitions within the spin-flop phase. Both types of transitions manifest …
Spin-flop transition (SFT) consists in a jump-like reversal of antiferromagnetic magnetic moments into a non-collinear state when the magnetic field increases above the critical value. Potentially the SFT can be utilized in many applications of a rapidly developing antiferromagnetic spintronics. However, the difficulty of using them in conventional antiferromagnets lies in (a) too large switching magnetic fields (b) the need for presence of a magnetic anisotropy, and (c) requirement to apply magnetic field along the correspondent anisotropy axis. In this work we propose to use artificial ferri…
Electrical switching of antiferromagnets is an exciting recent development in spintronics, which promises active antiferromagnetic devices with high speed and low energy cost. In this emerging field, there is an active debate about the mechanisms of current-driven switching of antiferromagnets. Harmonic characterization is a powerful tool to quantify current-induced spin-orbit torques and spin Seebeck effect in heavy-metal/ferromagnet systems. However, the harmonic measurement technique has never been verified in antiferromagnetic heterostructures. Here, we report for the first time harmonic m…
Searching for novel spin caloric effects in antiferromagnets we study the properties of thermally activated magnons in the presence of an external spin current and temperature gradient. We predict the spin Peltier effect -- generation of a heat flux by spin accumulation -- in an antiferromagnetic insulator with cubic or uniaxial magnetic symmetry. This effect is related with spin-current induced splitting of the relaxation times of the magnons with opposite spin direction. We show that the Peltier effect can trigger antiferromagnetic domain wall motion with a force whose value grows with the t…
Antiferromagnetic chains with an odd number of spins are known to undergo a transition from an antiparallel to a spin-flop configuration when subjected to an increasing magnetic field. We show that in the presence of an anisotropy favoring alignment perpendicular to the field, the spin-flop state appears for both weak and strong field, the antiparallel state appearing for intermediate fields. Both transitions are second order, the configuration varying continuously with the field intensity. Such re-entrant transition is robust with respect to quantum fluctuations and it might be observed in di…
The antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 (MBT) exhibits an ideal platform to study exotic topological phenomena and magnetic properties. The transport signatures of magnetic phase transitions in the MBT family materials have been well-studied. However, their mechanical properties and magneto-mechanical coupling have not been well-explored. We use nanoelectromechanical systems to study the intrinsic magnetism in MBT thin flakes via their magnetostrictive coupling. We investigate mechanical resonance signatures of magnetic phase transitions from antiferromagnetic (AFM) to canted anti…
In this work, the rich ground-state structure of orthogonally-coupled symmetric all-antiferromagnetic junctions with easy-plane anisotropy is reported. Spin reorientation process rather than the traditional spin flop (SF) occurs, resulting in a novel phase in which Néel vectors preserve the mirror-reflection symmetry (termed as ``MRS phase"). The phase transitions between SF and MRS phases can be either the first- or second-order. After disturbed by external stimuli, magnons with different parities emerge. For in-plane dc fields, no couplings between magnons occur. When dc fields become obliqu…
We present a theory of out-of-equilibrium ultrafast spin dynamics in magnetic heterostructures based on the s-d model of ferromagnetism. Both in the bulk and across interfaces, the exchange processes between the itinerant s and the localized d electrons are described by kinetic rate equations for electron-magnon spin-flop scattering. The principal channel for dissipation of angular momentum is provided by spin relaxation of the itinerant electrons. Our theory extends interfacial spin phenomena such as torques, pumping, and the Peltier and Seebeck effects to address laser-induced rapid spin dyn…
Spin transport of magnonic excitations in uniaxial insulating antiferromagnets (AFs) is investigated. In linear response to spin biasing and a temperature gradient, the spin transport properties of normal-metal--insulating antiferromagnet--normal-metal heterostructures are calculated. We focus on the thick-film regime, where the AF is thicker than the magnon equilibration length. This regime allows the use of a drift-diffusion approach, which is opposed to the thin-film limit considered by Bender {\it et al.} 2017, where a stochastic approach is justified. We obtain the temperature- and thickn…
By exploiting proximity coupling, we probe the spin state of the surface layers of CrI3, a van der Waals magnetic semiconductor, by measuring the induced magnetoresistance (MR) of Pt in Pt/CrI3 nano-devices. We fabricate the devices with clean and stable interfaces by placing freshly exfoliated CrI3 flake atop pre-patterned thin Pt strip and encapsulating the Pt/CrI3 heterostructure with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) in a protected environment. In devices consisting of a wide range of CrI3 thicknesses (30 to 150 nm), we observe that an abrupt upward jump in Pt MR emerge at a 2 T magnetic field…
Magnetic field induced modulation of heat transport in CrPS$_4$ probed by TaIrTe$_4$ transverse Seebeck thermometry
University of Groningen（格罗宁根大学）；Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学卡文迪许实验室）；School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds（利兹大学物理与天文学院）
We present a study of the transport properties of thermally generated spin currents in an insulating ferrimagnetic-antiferromagnetic-ferrimagnetic trilayer over a wide range of temperature. Spin currents generated by the spin Seebeck effect (SSE) in a yttrium iron garnet (YIG) YIG/NiO/YIG trilayer on a gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) substrate were detected using the inverse spin Hall effect in Pt. By studying samples with different NiO thicknesses, the NiO spin diffusion length was determined to be 4.2 nm at room temperature. Interestingly, below 30 K, the inverse spin Hall signals are associ…
We show how compensated antiferromagnetic spins can be implemented in the micromagnetic simulation program MuMax3. We demonstrate that we can model spin flop coupling as a uniaxial anisotropy for small canting angles and how we can take into account the exact energy terms for strong coupling between a ferromagnet and compensated antiferromagnet. We also investigate the training effect in biaxial antiferromagnets and reproduce the training effect in a polycrystalline IrMn/CoFe bilayer.
Dynamical antiferromagnets pump spins efficiently into adjacent conductors as ferromagnets. The high antiferromagnetic resonance frequencies represent a challenge for experimental detection, but magnetic fields can reduce these resonance frequencies. We compute the inverse spin Hall voltages resulting from dynamical spin excitations as a function of a magnetic field along the easy axis and the polarization of the driving AC magnetic field perpendicular to the easy axis. We consider the insulating antiferromagnets MnF$_2$, FeF$_2$, and NiO. Near the spin-flop transition, there is a significant …
An important vision of modern magnetic research is to use antiferromagnets as controllable and active ultrafast components in spintronic devices. Hematite is a promising model material in this respect because its pronounced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction leads to the coexistence of antiferromagnetism and weak ferromagnetism. Here, we use femtosecond laser pulses to drive terahertz spin currents from hematite into an adjacent Pt layer. We find two contributions to the generation of the spin current with distinctly different dynamics: the impulsive stimulated Raman scatting that relies on the…
The magnetic properties of the van der Waals magnetic topological insulators MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ and MnBi$_4$Te$_7$ are investigated by magneto-transport measurements. We evidence that the relative strength of the inter-layer exchange coupling J to the uniaxial anisotropy K controls a transition from an A-type antiferromagnetic order to a ferromagnetic-like metamagnetic state. A bi-layer Stoner-Wohlfarth model allows us to describe this evolution, as well as the typical angular dependence of specific signatures, such as the spin-flop transition of the uniaxial antiferromagnet and the switching fiel…
Intrinsic antiferromagnetism in van der Waals (vdW) monolayer (ML) crystals enriches the understanding regarding two-dimensional (2D) magnetic orders and holds special virtues over ferromagnetism in spintronic applications. However, the studies on intrinsic antiferromagnetism are sparse, owing to the lack of net magnetisation. In this study, by combining spin-polarised scanning tunnelling microscopy and first-principles calculations, we investigate the magnetism of vdW ML CrTe2, which has been successfully grown through molecular beam epitaxy. Surprisingly, we observe a stable antiferromagneti…
Three-dimensional (3D) compensated MnBi2Te4 is antiferromagnetic, but undergoes a spin-flop transition at intermediate fields, resulting in a canted phase before saturation. In this work, we experimentally show that the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in MnBi2Te4 originates from a topological response that is sensitive to the perpendicular magnetic moment and to its canting angle. Synthesis by molecular beam epitaxy allows us to obtain a large-area quasi-3D 24-layer MnBi2Te4 with near-perfect compensation that hosts the phase diagram observed in bulk which we utilize to probe the AHE. This AHE is …
University of Regensburg（雷根斯堡大学）；Technische Universität München（慕尼黑工业大学）；Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf（德累斯顿-罗斯多夫亥姆霍兹中心）；Donostia International Physics Center（圣塞巴斯蒂安国际物理中心）；University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU（巴斯克大学）；Czech Academy of Sciences（捷克科学院）；Universidad de Tarapacá（塔拉帕卡大学）；Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz（美因茨约翰内斯·古腾堡大学）；Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory（日立剑桥实验室）
Sub-spin-flop switching of a fully compensated antiferromagnet by magnetic field
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理国家实验室）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）；International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University（北京大学物理学院量子材料科学中心）
The two-dimensional Heisenberg exchange model with out-of-plane anisotropy and a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction is employed to investigate the lifetime and stability of antiferromagnetic (AFM) skyrmions as a function of temperature and external magnetic field. An isolated AFM skyrmion is metastable at zero temperature in a certain parameter range set by two boundaries separating the skyrmion state from the uniform AFM phase and a stripe domain phase. The distribution of the energy barriers for the AFM skyrmion decay into the uniform AFM state complements the zero-temperature stability diagr…
Transport and thermoelectric coefficients (including also spin thermopower) of silicene nanoribbons with zigzag edges are investigated by {\it ab-initio} numerical methods. Local spin density of such nanoribbons reveals edge magnetism. Like in graphene, one finds antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic ordering, with spin polarization at one edge antiparallel or parallel to that at the other edge, respectively. Thermoelectric properties, especially the Seebeck coefficient, significantly depend on the electronic band structure and are enhanced when the Fermi level is in the energy gap. However, the…
Observation of Dyakonov-Perel-type magnon spin relaxation in uniaxial antiferromagnetic insulators
Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）；Quantum Science Center of Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (Guangdong)（粤港澳大湾区量子科学中心（广东））；Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学）；Fudan University（复旦大学）
In antiferromagnetic spintronics, it is essential to separate the resistance modifications of purely magnetic origin from other effects generated by current pulses intended to switch the Néel vector. We investigate the magnetoresistance effects resulting from magnetic field induced reorientations of the staggered magnetization of epitaxial antiferromagnetic Mn2Au(001) thin films. The samples were exposed to 60 T magnetic field pulses along different crystallographic in-plane directions of Mn2Au(001), while their resistance was measured. For the staggered magnetization aligned via a spin-flop t…
