Optical determination of the Neel vector in a CuMnAs thin-film antiferromagnet
Optical determination of the Neel vector in a CuMnAs thin-film antiferromagnet
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DOI：
10.1038/nphoton.2016.255
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发表时间：
2017-02-01
期刊：
影响因子：
35
通讯作者：
Jungwirth, T.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Saidl, V.;Nemec, P.;Jungwirth, T.
最近在反铁磁体的电探测和操纵方面的突破为非易失性自旋电子器件的研究开辟了一条新的途径（1-10）。反铁磁体中的反平行自旋亚晶格产生零偶极场，导致对磁场扰动的不敏感性、多级稳定性、超快自旋动力学和其他有利特性，并且可以在从磁存储器到光信号处理的领域中找到实用性。然而，由于缺乏净磁矩和超短磁化动力学时间尺度，使得反铁磁体非常难以使用普通磁力计或磁共振技术进行研究。在这里，我们展示了反铁磁CuMnAs薄膜（参考文献9，10）中Neel矢量的实验测定，CuMnAs是第一个实现反铁磁存储芯片（10）中使用的重要材料。我们使用桌面飞秒泵浦探测磁光实验，这比传统上采用的大型设施技术，如中子衍射（11）和X射线磁二向色性测量（12-16）更容易获得。
Recent breakthroughs in the electrical detection and manipulation of antiferromagnets have opened a new avenue in the research of non-volatile spintronic devices(1-10). Antiparallel spin sublattices in antiferromagnets, producing zero dipolar fields, lead to insensitivity to magnetic field perturbations, multi-level stability, ultrafast spin dynamics and other favourable characteristics, and may find utility in fields ranging from magnetic memories to optical signal processing. However, the absence of a net magnetic moment and ultrashort magnetization dynamics timescales make antiferromagnets notoriously difficult to study using common magnetometers or magnetic resonance techniques. Here, we demonstrate the experimental determination of the Neel vector in a thin film of antiferromagnetic CuMnAs (refs 9,10), a prominent material used in the first realization of antiferromagnetic memory chips(10). We use a table-top femtosecond pump probe magneto-optical experiment that is considerably more accessible than the traditionally employed large-scale-facility techniques such as neutron diffraction(11) and X-ray magnetic dichroism measurements(12-16).