We develop a theory to compute the domain-wall magnetoresistance (DWMR) in antiferromagnetic (AFM) metals with different spin structures. In the diffusive transport regime, the DWMR can be either {\it negative} or positive depending on the domain-wall orientation and spin structure. In contrast, when the transport is in the ballistic regime, the DWMR is always positive, and the magnitude depends on the width and orientation of the domain wall. Our results pave the way of using electrical measurements for probing the internal spin structure in antiferromagnetic metals.
We investigate the spin Hall magnetoresistance in thin film bilayer heterostructures of the heavy metal Pt and the antiferromagnetic insulator NiO. While rotating an external magnetic field in the easy plane of NiO, we record the longitudinal and the transverse resistivity of the Pt layer and observe an amplitude modulation consistent with the spin Hall magnetoresistance. In comparison to Pt on collinear ferrimagnets, the modulation is phase shifted by 90° and its amplitude strongly increases with the magnitude of the magnetic field. We explain the observed magnetic field-dependence of the spi…
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…
We investigate the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) at room temperature in thin film heterostructures of antiferromagnetic, insulating, (0001)-oriented alpha-Fe2O3 (hematite) and Pt. We measure their longitudinal and transverse resistivities while rotating an applied magnetic field of up to 17T in three orthogonal planes. For out-of-plane magnetotransport measurements, we find indications for a multidomain antiferromagnetic configuration whenever the field is aligned along the film normal. For in-plane field rotations, we clearly observe a sinusoidal resistivity oscillation characteristic for…
Spintronic devices using antiferromagnets (AFMs) are promising candidates for future applications. Recently, many interesting physical properties have been reported with AFM-based devices. Here we report a butterfly-shaped magnetoresistance (MR) in a micrometer-sized triangular-lattice antiferromagnet Ag$_2$CrO$_2$. The material consists of two-dimensional triangular-lattice CrO$_2$ layers with antiferromagnetically coupled $S$ = 3/2 spins and Ag$_2$ layers with high electrical conductivity. The butterfly-shaped MR appears only when the magnetic field is applied perpendicularly to the CrO$_2$ …
A nonlinear magnetoresistance - called unidirectional spin-Hall magnetoresistance - is recently experimentally discovered in metallic bilayers consisting of a heavy metal and a ferromagnetic metal. To study the fundamental mechanism of the USMR, both ferromagnetic and heavy metallic layer thickness dependence of the USMR are presented in a Pt/Co/AlOx trilayer at room temperature. To avoid ambiguities, second harmonic Hall measurements are used for separating spin-Hall and thermal contributions to the non-linear magnetoresistance. The experimental results are fitted by using a drift-diffusion t…
The interplay between electronic transport and antiferromagnetic order has attracted a surge of interest as recent studies have shown that a moderate change in the spin orientation of a collinear antiferromagnet may have a significant effect on the electronic band structure. Among numerous electrical probes to read out such magnetic order, unidirectional magnetoresistance (UMR), where the resistance changes under the reversal of the current direction, can provide rich insights into the transport properties of spin-orbit coupled systems. However, UMR has never been observed in antiferromagnets …
We study the temperature dependence of spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) in antiferromagnetic insulator (AFI)/metal bilayer systems. We calculate the amplitude of the SMR signal by using a quantum Monte Carlo simulation and examine how the SMR depends on the amplitude of the spin, thickness of the AFI layer, and randomness of the exchange interactions. Our results for simple quantum spin models provide a useful starting point for understanding SMR measurements on atomic layers of magnetic compounds.
Ferromagnetic spin-valves and tunneling junctions are crucial for spintronics applications and are one of the most fundamental spintronics devices. Motivated by the potential unique advantages of antiferromagnets for spintronics, we theoretically study here junctions built out of non-collinear antiferromagnets. We demonstrate a large and robust magnetoresistance and spin-transfer torque capable of ultrafast switching between parallel and anti-parallel states of the junction. In addition, we show that the non-collinear order results in a spin-transfer torque that is in several key aspects diffe…
Antiferromagnetic (AFM) spintronics has emerged as a subfield of spintronics driven by the advantages of antiferromagnets producing no stray fields and exhibiting ultrafast magnetization dynamics. The efficient method to detect an AFM order parameter, known as the Néel vector, by electric means is critical to realize concepts of AFM spintronics. Here, we demonstrate that non-collinear AFM metals, such as Mn3Sn, exhibit a momentum dependent spin polarization which can be exploited in AFM tunnel junctions to detect the Néel vector. Using first-principles calculations based on density functional …
Giant or tunneling magnetoresistance are physical phenomena used for reading information in commercial spintronic devices. The effects rely on a conserved spin current passing between a reference and a sensing ferromagnetic electrode in a multilayer structure. Recently, we have proposed that these fundamental spintronic effects can be realized in collinear antiferromagnets with staggered spin-momentum exchange interaction, which generates conserved spin currents in the absence of a net equilibrium magnetization. Here we elaborate on the proposal by presenting archetype model mechanisms for the…
A common perception assumes that magnetic memories require ferromagnetic materials with a non-zero net magnetic moment. However, it has been recently proposed that compensated antiferromagnets with a zero net moment may represent a viable alternative to ferromagnets. So far, experimental research has focused on bistable memories in antiferromagnetic metals. In the present work we demonstrate a multiple-stable memory device in epitaxial manganese telluride (MnTe) which is an antiferromagnetic counterpart of common II-VI semiconductors. Favorable micromagnetic characteristics of MnTe allow us to…
Van der Waals materials are a new platform to study two-dimensional systems, including magnetic order. Since the number of spins is relatively small, measuring the magnetization is challenging. Here we report spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) up to room temperature caused by the magnetic surface texture of exfoliated flakes of magnetic van der Waals materials. For the antiferromagnet FePS3 the SMR amounts to 0.1 % for an applied magnetic field of 7 T at 5 K which implies a substantial canting of the magnetic moments relative to the colinear antiferromagnetic order. The canting is substantial e…
Large magnetoresistance effect controlled by electric field rather than magnetic field or electric current is a preferable routine for designing low power consumption magnetoresistance-based spintronic devices. Here we propose an electric-field controlled antiferromagnetic (AFM) tunnel junction with structure of piezoelectric substrate/Mn3Pt/SrTiO3/Pt operating by the magnetic phase transition (MPT) of antiferromagnet Mn3Pt through its magneto-volume effect. The transport properties of the proposed AFM tunnel junction have been investigated by employing first-principles calculations. Our resul…
We report the observation of magnetoresistance originating from Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in a metallic heterostructure: the Rashba-Edelstein (RE) magnetoresistance. We show that the simultaneous action of the direct and inverse RE effects in a Bi/Ag/CoFeB trilayer couples current-induced spin accumulation to the electric resistance. The electric resistance changes with the magnetic-field angle, reminiscent of the spin Hall magnetoresistance, despite the fact that bulk SOC is not responsible for the magnetoresistance. We further found that, even when the magnetization is saturated, the …
Spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) is studied in metallic bilayers that consist of heavy metal (HM) layer and a ferromagnetic metal (FM) layer. We find nearly a ten-fold increase of SMR in W/CoFeB compared to previously studied HM/ferromagnetic insulator (FI) systems. The SMR increases with decreasing temperature despite the negligible change in the W layer resistivity with temperature. A model is developed to account for the absorption of the longitudinal spin current to the FM layer, one of the key characteristics of a metallic ferromagnet. We find that the model not only quantitatively descr…
We report point-contact measurements of anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) in a single crystal of antiferromagnetic (AFM) Mott insulator Sr2IrO4. The point-contact technique is used here as a local probe of magnetotransport properties on the nanoscale. The measurements at liquid nitrogen temperature revealed negative magnetoresistances (MRs) (up to 28%) for modest magnetic fields (250 mT) applied within the IrO2 a-b plane and electric currents flowing perpendicular to the plane. The angular dependence of MR shows a crossover from four-fold to two-fold symmetry in response to an increasing mag…
We derive a simple relational expression between the spin polarization ratio of resistivity, $P_ρ$, and the anisotropic magnetoresistance ratio $Δρ/ρ$, and that between the spin polarization ratio of the density of states at the Fermi energy, $P_{\rm DOS}$, and $Δρ/ρ$ for nearly half-metallic ferromagnets. We find that $P_ρ$ and $P_{\rm DOS}$ increase with increasing $|Δρ/ρ|$ from 0 to a maximum value. In addition, we roughly estimate $P_ρ$ and $P_{\rm DOS}$ for a Co$_2$FeGa$_{0.5}$Ge$_{0.5}$ Heusler alloy by substituting its experimentally observed $Δρ/ρ$ into the respective expressions.
A theoretical formulation of magnetoresistance effect in a metallic ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic bilayer originated from the charge-spin conversion by the anomalous Hall effect is presented. Analytical expressions of the longitudinal and transverse resistivities in both nonmagnet and ferromagnet are obtained by solving the spin diffusion equation. The magnetoresistance generated from charge-spin conversion purely caused by the anomalous Hall effect in the ferromagnet is found to be proportional to the square of the spin polarizations in the ferromagnet and has fixed sign. We also find additional …
Unidirectional spin Hall magnetoresistance (USMR) has been widely reported in the heavy metal / ferromagnet (HM/FM) bilayer systems. We observe the USMR in the Pt/α-Fe2O3 bilayers where the α-Fe2O3 is an antiferromagnetic (AFM) insulator. Systematic field and temperature dependent measurements confirm the magnonic origin of the USMR. The appearance of AFM-USMR is driven by the imbalance of creation and annihilation of AFM magnons by spin orbit torque due to thermal random field. However, unlike its ferromagnetic counterpart, theoretical modeling reveals that the USMR in Pt/α-Fe2O3 is determine…
The two dimensional kagome spin lattice structure of Mn atoms in the family of Mn$_3$X non-collinear antiferromagnets are providing substantial excitement in the exploration of Berry curvature physics and the associated non-trivial magnetotransport responses. Much of these studies are performed in the hexagonal systems, mainly Mn$_3$Sn and Mn$_3$Ge, with the kagome planes having their normal along the [001] direction. In this manuscript, we report our study in the cubic Mn$_3$Pt thin films with their kagome planes normal to the [111] crystal axis. Our studies reveal a hole conduction dominant …
We report a combined study of imaging the antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin structure and measuring the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) in epitaxial thin films of the insulating non-collinear antiferromagnet SmFeO$_3$. X-ray magnetic linear dichroism photoemission electron microscopy measurements reveal that the AFM spins of the SmFeO$_3$(110) align in the plane of the film. Angularly dependent magnetoresistance measurements show that SmFeO$_3$/Ta bilayers exhibit a positive SMR, in contrast to the negative SMR expected in previously studied collinear AFMs. The SMR amplitude increases linearly wi…
We demonstrate that we can determine the antiferromagnetic anisotropies and the bulk Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya fields of the insulating iron oxide hematite, α-Fe2O3, using a surface sensitive spin-Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) technique. We develop an analytical model that in combination with SMR measurements, allow for the identification of the material parameters of this prototypical antiferromagnet over a wide range of temperatures and magnetic field values. Using devices with different orientations, we demonstrate that the SMR response strongly depends on the direction of the charge current wit…
We investigate the effects of strain on antiferromagntic (AFM) single crystal thin films of La$_{1-x}$Sr$_{x}$MnO$_{3}$ (x = 0.6). Nominally unstrained samples have strong magnetoresistance with anisotropic magnetoresistances (AMR) of up to 8%. Compressive strain suppresses magnetoresistance but generates AMR values of up to 63%. Tensile strain presents the only case of a metal-insulator transition and demonstrates a previously unreported AMR behavior. In all three cases, we find evidence of magnetic ordering and no indication of a global ferromagnetic phase transition. These behaviors are att…
Spin Hall Magnetoresistance in Antiferromagnetic Insulators
Walther-Meissner-Institut, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften（瓦尔特·迈斯纳研究所，巴伐利亚科学院）；TUM School of Natural Sciences, Technische Universität München（慕尼黑工业大学自然科学学院）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）
Ab initio study of magnetoresistance effect in $\mathrm{Mn_{3}Sn}/\mathrm{MgO}/\mathrm{Mn_{3}Sn}$ antiferromagnetic tunnel junction
University of Tokyo（东京大学）；JSR Corporation（JSR公司）；Kyoto University（京都大学）；Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学）；Tokyo Metropolitan University（东京都立大学）；Tohoku University（东北大学）；RIKEN（理化学研究所）
The recently discovered antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ hosts a variety of exotic topological quantum phases such as the axion insulator and Chern insulator states. Here we report systematic gate voltage dependent magneto transport studies in six septuple-layer MnBi$_2$Te$_4$. In p-type carrier regime, we observe positive linear magnetoresistance when MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ is polarized in the ferromagnetic state by an out-of-plane magnetic field. Whereas in n-type regime, distinct negative magnetoresistance behaviors are observed. The magnetoresistance in both regimes is highly…
We study the anomalous Hall-like effect (AHLE) and the effective anisotropic magnetoresistance (EAMR) in antiferromagnetic γ -IrMn3/Y3Fe5O12(YIG) and Pt/YIG heterostructures. For γ -IrMn3/YIG, the EAMR and the AHLE resistivity change sign with temperature due to the competition between the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) and the magnetic proximity effect (MPE) induced by the interfacial antiferromagnetic uncompensated magnetic moment. In contrast, for Pt/YIG the AHLE resistivity changes sign with temperature whereas no sign change is observed in the EAMR. This is because the MPE and the SMR …
We calculate the interaction kernel K for two-dimensional diffusive electrons. The screening of the Coulomb interaction together with the Fermi statistics induces a spin selection rule for electron-electron scattering so that in leading order in the inverse conductance only pairs of electrons with antiparallel spins do scatter. At low temperature, this results in a larger coherence length for fully polarized electrons and thus in a positive in-plane magnetoresistance. An applied in-plane magnetic field also induces a nonmonotonous behavior of K at finite temperature. Alternatively, the vanishi…
The electronic structure and conductance of substitutionally edge-doped zigzag silicene nanoribbons (ZSiNRs) are investigated using the nonequilibrium Green's function method combined with the density functional theory. Two-probe systems of ZSiNRs in both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic states are considered. Doping effects of elements from groups III and V, in a parallel or antiparallel magnetic configuration of the two electrodes, are discussed. Switching on and off the external magnetic field, we may convert the metallic ferromagnetic ZSiNRs into insulating antiferromagnetic ZSiNRs. In …
A magnetoresistance effect induced by the Rashba spin-orbit interaction was predicted, but not yet observed, in bilayers consisting of normal metal and ferromagnetic insulator. Here, we present an experimental observation of this new type of spin-orbit magnetoresistance (SOMR) effect in a bilayer structure Cu[Pt]/Y3Fe5O12 (YIG), where the Cu/YIG interface is decorated with nanosize Pt islands. This new MR is apparently not caused by the bulk spin-orbit interaction because of the negligible spin-orbit interaction in Cu and the discontinuity of the Pt islands. This SOMR disappears when the Pt is…
We report on spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) measurements of Pt Hall bars on the antiferromagnetic NiO(111) single crystal. An SMR with a sign opposite of conventional SMR is observed over a wide range of temperatures as well as magnetic fields stronger than 0.25T. The negative sign of the SMR can be explained by the alignment of magnetic moments being almost perpendicular to the external magnetic field within the easy plane (111) of the antiferromagnet. This correlation of magnetic moment alignment and external magnetic field direction is realized just by the easy-plane nature of the materi…
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…
Recent studies evidence the emergence of asymmetric electron transport in layered conductors owing to the interplay between electrical conductivity, magnetization, and the spin Hall or Rashba- Edelstein effects. Here, we investigate the unidirectional magnetoresistance (UMR) caused by the current-induced spin accumulation in Co/Pt and CoCr/Pt bilayers. We identify three competing mechanisms underpinning the resistance asymmetry, namely interface and bulk spin-dependent electron scattering and electron-magnon scattering. Our measurements provide a consistent description of the current, magnetic…
In this study we have measured the magnetoresistance response of inverted HgTe quantum wells in the presence of a large parallel magnetic field up to 33 T is applied. We show that in quantum wells with inverted band structure a monotonically decreasing magnetoresistance is observed when a magnetic field up to order 10 T is applied parallel to the quantum well plane. This feature is accompanied by a vanishing of non-locality and is consistent with a predicted modification of the energy spectrum that becomes gapless at a critical in-plane field $B_{c}$. Magnetic fields in excess of $B_c$ allow u…
We analyze the complex impact of the local magnetic spin texture on the transverse Hall-type voltage in device structures utilized to measure magnetoresistance effects. We find a highly localized and asymmetric magnetic sensitivity in the eight-terminal geometries that are frequently used in current-induced switching experiments, for instance to probe antiferromagnetic materials. Using current-induced switching of antiferromagnetic NiO/Pt as an example, we estimate the change in the spin Hall magnetoresistance signal associated with switching events based on the domain switching patterns obser…
We investigate the angular dependence of the magnetoresistance of thin (< 1 nm), metallic SrTiO3 quantum wells epitaxially embedded in insulating, ferrimagnetic GdTiO3 and insulating, antiferromagnetic SmTiO3, respectively. The SrTiO3 quantum wells contain a high density of mobile electrons (~7x10^14 cm^-2). We show that the longitudinal and transverse magnetoresistance in the structures with GdTiO3 are consistent with anisotropic magnetoresistance, and thus indicative of induced ferromagnetism in the SrTiO3, rather than a nonequilibrium proximity effect. Comparison with the structures with an…
Silicene, germanene and stanene are two-dimensional topological insulators exhibiting helical edge states. We investigate global and local manipulations at the edges by exposing them to (i) a charge-density-wave order, (ii) a superconductor, (iii) an out-of-plane antiferromagnetic, and (iv) an in-plane antiferromagnetic field. We show that these perturbations affect the helical edge states in a different fashion. As a consequence one can realize quantum spin-Hall effect without edge states. In addition, these edge manipulations lead to very promising applications: a giant magnetoresistance and…
We theoretically analyze the anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) effects of bcc Fe (+), fcc Co (+), fcc Ni (+), Fe$_4$N (-), and a half-metallic ferromagnet (-). The sign in each ( ) represents the sign of the AMR ratio observed experimentally. We here use the two-current model for a system consisting of a spin-polarized conduction state and localized d states with spin--orbit interaction. From the model, we first derive a general expression of the AMR ratio. The expression consists of a resistivity of the conduction state of the $σ$ spin ($σ=\uparrow$ or $\downarrow$), $ρ_{s σ}$, and resistiv…
We investigate the spin-current transport through antiferromagnetic insulator (AFMI) by means of the spin-Hall magnetoressitance (SMR) over a wide temperature range in Pt/NiO/Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ (Pt/NiO/YIG) heterostructures. By inserting the AFMI NiO layer, the SMR dramatically decreases by decreasing the temperature down to the antiferromagnetically ordered state of NiO, which implies that the AFM order prevents rather than promotes the spin-current transport. On the other hand, the magnetic proximity effect (MPE) on induced Pt moments by YIG, which entangles with the spin-Hall effect (SHE) …
A large unidirectional magnetoresistance (UMR) ratio of UMR/$R_{xx}\sim$ $0.36\%$ is found in W/CoFeB metallic bilayer heterostructures at room temperature. Three different regimes in terms of the current dependence of UMR ratio are identified: A spin-dependent-scattering mechanism regime at small current densities $J \sim$ $10$$^{9}$A/m$^{2}$ (UMR ratio $\propto$ $J$), a spin-magnon-interaction mechanism regime at intermediate $J \sim$ $10$$^{10}$A/m$^{2}$ (UMR ratio $\propto$ $J$$^{3}$), and a spin-transfer torque (STT) regime at $J \sim$ $10$$^{11}$A/m$^{2}$ (UMR ratio independent of $J$). …
We use a ferromagnetic voltage probe model to study the influence of inelastic scattering on giant magnetoresistance and current-induced torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic metal spin valves. The model is based on the Green's function formulation of transport theory and represents spin-dependent and spin-independent inelastic scatterers by interior voltage probes that are constrained to carry respectively no charge current and no spin or charge current. We find that giant magnetoresistance and spin transfer torques in ferromagnetic metal spin valve structures survive arbitrarily str…
By computing spin-polarized electronic transport across a finite zigzag graphene ribbon bridging two metallic graphene electrodes, we demonstrate, as a proof of principle, that devices featuring 100% magnetoresistance can be built entirely out of carbon. In the ground state a short zig-zag ribbon is an antiferromagnetic insulator which, when connecting two metallic electrodes, acts as a tunnel barrier that suppresses the conductance. Application of a magnetic field turns the ribbon ferromagnetic and conducting, increasing dramatically the current between electrodes. We predict large magnetores…
