Journal Article

Observation of the antiferromagnetic spin Hall effect

Fan, Xiaolong, Yang, Hyunsoo, Zhu, Zengwei, Bai, Hua, Liao, Liyang, Zhou, Xiaofeng, Li, Ang, Shi, Guoyi, Han, Xiaodong, Wu, Huaqiang, Shi, Shuyuan, Pan, Feng, Xue, Desheng, Chen, Xianzhe, Chen, Yanhui, Zhang, Hanwen, Zhou, Yongjian, Wang, Xiangrong, Jiang, Shan, Song, Cheng

2021

Overview

The discovery of the spin Hall effect 1 enabled the efficient generation and manipulation of the spin current. More recently, the magnetic spin Hall effect 2 , 3 was observed in non-collinear antiferromagnets, where the spin conservation is broken due to the non-collinear spin configuration. This provides a unique opportunity to control the spin current and relevant device performance with controllable magnetization. Here, we report a magnetic spin Hall effect in a collinear antiferromagnet, Mn 2 Au. The spin currents are generated at two spin sublattices with broken spatial symmetry, and the antiparallel antiferromagnetic moments play an important role. Therefore, we term this effect the ‘antiferromagnetic spin Hall effect’. The out-of-plane spins from the antiferromagnetic spin Hall effect are favourable for the efficient switching of perpendicular magnetized devices, which is required for high-density applications. The antiferromagnetic spin Hall effect adds another twist to the atomic-level control of spin currents via the antiferromagnetic spin structure. A magnetic spin Hall effect is reported in the collinear antiferromagnet Mn 2 Au.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 639/301 / 639/766 / Antiferromagnetism / Biomaterials / Chemistry and Materials Science / Condensed Matter Physics / Electromagnetism / Hall effect / Letter / Magnetism / Materials Science / Nanotechnology / Optical and Electronic Materials / Spin structure / Spintronics / Stability