"Cr2O3-based energy-efficient and ultra-fast memory and oscillator"
Antiferromagnetic materials have ordered spin moments that alternate between individual atomic sites, which gives them a vanishing macroscopic magnetic signature and picosecond intrinsic timescale. These properties combined with emerging spintronic phenomena make antiferromagnets suitable for future technologies such as high-density nonvolatile memory and terahertz nano-oscillator.
Chromium oxide is an archetypal room-temperature antiferromagnetic insulator. Its domain state can be controlled by electric field in the presence of a small magnetic field from linear magnetoelectric effect, and can be detected by measuring the anomalous Hall signal produced by stray moments on the surface. A steady-state spin precession can be excited from an in-plane electric current in a bilayer geometry consisting of a metal with strong spin-orbit coupling and chromium oxide, and can be detected from spin pumping. We will explore the phenomenology of spin dynamics to understand the prospects of chromium oxide to act as a memory and an oscillator, and signify the present challenges.
