Electrical manipulation of antiferromagnets with specific symmetries offers the prospect of creating novel, antiferromagnetic spintronic devices. Such devices aim to make use of the insensitivity to external magnetic fields and the ultrafast dynamics at the picosecond timescale intrinsic to antiferromagnets. The possibility to electrically switch antiferromagnets was first predicted for Mn2Au and then experimentally observed in tetragonal CuMnAs. Here, we report on the electrical switching and detection of the Néel order in epitaxial films of Mn2Au. The exponential dependences of the switching amplitude on the current density and the temperature are explained by a macroscopic thermal activation model taking into account the effect of the Joule heating in Hall cross devices and we observe that the thermal activation plays a key role in the reorientation process of the Néel order. Our model analysis shows that the electrically set Néel-state is long-term stable at room temperature, paving the way for practical applications in memory devices. arXiv:1706.06983v2 [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

We report on the new polycrystalline exchange bias system MnN/CoFe, which shows exchange bias of up to 1800 Oe at room temperature with a coercive field around 600 Oe. The room temperature values of the interfacial exchange energy and the effective uniaxial anisotropy are estimated to be J eff = 0.41 mJ/m 2 and K eff = 37 kJ / m 3 . The thermal stability was found to be tunable by controlling the nitrogen content of the MnN. The maximum blocking temperature exceeds 325• C, however the median blocking temperature in the limit of thick MnN is 160• C. Good oxidation stability through self-passivation was observed, enabling the use of MnN in lithographically defined microstructures. As a proof-of-principle we demonstrate a simple GMR stack exchange biased with MnN, which shows clear separation between parallel and antiparallel magnetic states. These properties come along with a surprisingly simple manufacturing process for the MnN films.

We investigated an out-of-plane exchange bias system that is based on the antiferromagnet MnN. Polycrystalline, highly textured film stacks of Ta / MnN / CoFeB / MgO / Ta were grown on SiO x by (reactive) magnetron sputtering and studied by x-ray diffraction and Kerr magnetometry. Nontrivial modifications of the exchange bias and the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy were observed both as functions of film thicknesses as well as field cooling temperatures. In optimized film stacks, a giant perpendicular exchange bias of 3600 Oe and a coercive field of 350 Oe were observed at room temperature. The effective interfacial exchange energy is estimated to be J eff = 0.24 mJ/m 2 and the effective uniaxial anisotropy constant of the antiferromagnet is K eff = 24 kJ/m 3 . The maximum effective perpendicular anisotropy field of the CoFeB layer is H ani = 3400 Oe. These values are larger than any previously reported values. These results possibly open a route to magnetically stable, exchange biased perpendicularly magnetized spin valves.Spin electronics allows to realize nonvolatile fast lowpower computer memory and is well established in hard disk drive read heads and magnetic sensors.1,2 The key component in spin electronic devices, a magnetoresistive element using either giant magnetoresistance (GMR) or tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR), is composed of two magnetic films: a free sense layer and a fixed reference layer. The magnetization of the ferromagnetic free layer follows external magnetic fields or can be switched by a current via the spin transfer torque. The reference layer has to be stable against external fields to allow for different magnetic alignments of the two layers, which give rise to the magnetoresistance. The reference layer is typically created by pinning a thin ferromagnetic (FM) film to an antiferromagnetic (AFM) film via the exchange bias (EB) effect.3-9 In a typical device, the magnetic hysteresis loop of the reference layer is shifted by the exchange bias to fields that are not encountered during normal device operation.Thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) are of great interest for spintronic devices. The tunable anisotropy energy allows to enhance the thermal stability of the magnetization and lower critical current densities for the spin-transfer torque switching are achievable as compared to in-plane magnetized systems.10-12 Thus, interest in systems showing perpendicular EB (PEB) increased as well. There are several studies about (Co/Pt) n and (Co/Pd) n multilayer systems coupled with an AFM such as IrMn or FeMn. 13-17However, the reported perpendicular exchange bias field values H eb are similar to the coercive field H c , making these systems not attractive for practical applications that require H eb H c . Chen et al. In the present article, we report on an exchange bias system that is based on antiferromagnetic MnN. It crystallizes in the θ-phase of the Mn-N phase diagram, 20 which crystallizes in the tetragonal variant of the NaCl structure with a = 4.256Å and c = 4.189Å ...

In this work, we study the influence of the magnetic proximity effect (MPE) in Pt on the total magnetic moment of thin film trilayer systems consisting of the ferromagnet (FM) Co adjacent to the heavy metals (HMs) Pt and Ta. We investigate the trilayer systems HM 1 /FM/HM 2 with different stacking order as well as a reference bilayer without any MPE. X-ray resonant magnetic reflectivity (XRMR) is a powerful tool to probe induced magnetism, especially when buried at interfaces in a multilayer. By using XRMR, we are able to obtain magnetic depth profiles of the structural, optical and magnetic parameters. By fitting the experimental data with a Gaussian-like magnetooptic profile taking the structural roughness at the interface into account, we can extract the magnetic moment of the spin-polarized layer. Comparing the obtained moments to the measured total moment of the sample, we can determine the impact of the MPE on the total magnetic moment of the system. Such information can be critical for analyzing spin transport experiments, including spin-orbit torque and spin Hall angle measurements, where the saturation magnetization M s has to be taken into account. Therefore, by combining magnetization measurements and XRMR methods we were able to get a complete picture of the magnetic moment distribution in these trilayer systems containing spin-polarized Pt.

Antiferromagnetic materials as active components in spintronic devices promise insensitivity against external magnetic fields, the absence of own magnetic stray fields, and ultrafast dynamics at the picosecond time scale. Materials with certain crystal-symmetry show an intrinsic Néel-order spin-orbit torque that can efficiently switch the magnetic order of an antiferromagnet. The tetragonal variant of CuMnAs was shown to be electrically switchable by this intrinsic spin-orbit effect and its use in memory cells with memristive properties has been recently demonstrated for highquality films grown with molecular beam epitaxy. Here, we demonstrate that the magnetic order of magnetron-sputtered CuMnAs films can also be manipulated by electrical current pulses. The switching efficiency and relaxation as a function of temperature, current density, and pulse width can be described by a thermal-activation model. Our findings demonstrate that CuMnAs can be fabricated with an industry-compatible deposition technique, which will accelerate the development cycle of devices based on this remarkable material. arXiv:1903.12387v2 [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]