Fig.1: Anomalous transverse response: Hall effect (a-c), Nernst effect (d-f).
Fig.2: Longitudinal (a) and transverse (b) magnetization.
Fig.3: Spin texture of chiral domain wall in Mn3Sn.
Fig.4: Switching the sign of planar Hall effect using the prior magnetic filed history.
(Nature Communications 10, 3021 (2019),DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10815-8)
Background
Antiferromagnet is a very important class of materials in application and basic research, which are new alternative candidates in spintronic device, thanks to their vanishingly small stray field. Recently, a room-temperature noncolinear antiferromagnet, Mn3Sn, attracts a lot of attention. It has many unexpected properties, such as large anomalous Hall effect (AHE), anomalous Nernst effect (ANE), anomalous Righi-Leduc effect (ARLE) and magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE), due to Berry curvature with almost no magnetization. It opens a new avenue for the spintronic and thermoelectric application. But hitherto, its spin texture of domain wall is still unclear.
What we discover?
In this recent work, Prof. Zhu’s group present a study about the spin texture of Mn3Sn via measuring the transverse response. They found three new physical effect: a new mechanism planar Hall and Nernst effect (PHE and PNE in Fig.1) and transverse magnetization (TM in Fig.2). Based on these new discoveries, they proposed a new spin texture and four spin rotation configurations of chiral domain wall (Fig.3), which explains all new discoveries above successfully. And Based on the analysis of this scenario, a new memory effect was successfully predicted and experimentally observed (Fig.4). That is, the prior magnetic filed history experienced by the sample can switch the positive and negative signs of the planar hall effect and the transverse magnetization signal. It is expected to be used in memory devices.
Why is this important?
This work uncovered three new physical effects and extended the off-diagonal tensor of the magnetization. Proposing a new spin texture of chiral domain wall filled the margin in noncolinear antiferromagnet. Switching the sign of planar Hall effect using the prior magnetic filed history promoted the application in memory, spintronic and thermoelectric devices.
Who did the research?
Xiaokang Li1,2, Clément Collignon2,3, Liangcai Xu1, Huakun Zuo1, Antonella Cavanna4, Ulf Gennser4, Dominique Mailly4, Benôıt Fauqué2,3, Leon Balents5, Zengwei Zhu1,∗and Kamran Behnia2,6,∗
1 Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center and School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
2 Laboratoire de Physique et d’Etude de Matériaux (CNRS) ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France
3 JEIP (USR 3573 CNRS), Collège de France, 75005 Paris, France
4 Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, 91120 Palaiseau, France
5 Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
6 II. Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, 50937 Köln, Germany
Funding
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No.11574097) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No.2016YFA0401704) and by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-18-CE92-0020-01). ZZ was supported by the 1000 Youth Talents Plan. KB was supported by China High-end foreign expert program and Fonds-ESPCI-Paris. LB was supported by the US National Science Foundation Materials Theory program, grant number DMR1818533. XL acknowledges a PhD scholarship by the China Scholarship Council (CSC).
