Authors:	Meer, Hendrik Schreiber, Felix Schmitt, Christin Ramos, Rafael Saitoh, Eiji Gomonay, Olena Sinova, Jairo Baldrati, Lorenzo Kläui, Mathias
Title:	Direct imaging of current-induced antiferromagnetic switching revealing a pure thermomagnetoelastic switching mechanism in NiO
Online publication date:	4-Feb-2022
Year of first publication:	2020
Language:	english
Abstract:	We unravel the origin of current-induced magnetic switching of insulating antiferromagnet/heavy metal systems. We utilize concurrent transport and magneto-optical measurements to image the switching of antiferromagnetic domains in specially engineered devices of NiO/Pt bilayers. Different electrical pulsing and device geometries reveal different final states of the switching with respect to the current direction. We can explain these through simulations of the temperature-induced strain, and we identify the thermomagnetoelastic switching mechanism combined with thermal excitations as the origin, in which the final state is defined by the strain distributions and heat is required to switch the antiferromagnetic domains. We show that such a potentially very versatile noncontact mechanism can explain the previously reported contradicting observations of the switching final state, which were attributed to spin-orbit torque mechanisms.
DDC:	530 Physik 530 Physics
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 08 Physik, Mathematik u. Informatik
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-5698
Version:	Accepted version
Publication type:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Document type specification:	Scientific article
License:	In Copyright
Information on rights of use:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Journal:	Nano letters 21 1
Pages or article number:	114 119
Publisher:	ACS Publ.
Publisher place:	Washington, DC
Issue date:	2021
ISSN:	1530-6984
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03367
Publisher DOI:	10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03367
Appears in collections:	JGU-Publikationen