Kamil Olejnik
The promise of ultrafast dynamics of antiferromagnets motivates a broad effort to develop new materials and techniques suitable for the study and manipulation of the magnetic state of antiferromagnets. As a result of this activity and thanks to the spintronic perspective, many new interesting phenomena and properties of antiferromagnets were discovered recently [1].
The research of CuMnAs antiferromagnet was initiated by theoretical prediction and experimental demonstration of manipulation of the L-vector using staggered spin-orbit field [2]. Besides this effect, a new type of switching was discovered in CuMnAs which is based on the quenching of nanometer-scale multi-domain state. This effect is accompanied by a significant change of resistivity (reaching 100% at low temperatures) making it interesting for magnetic memory applications [3].
The functional characteristics of the quench-switching of CuMnAs will be discussed in detail. The dynamics of the effect will be assessed from the comparison of switching induced by electrical, THz radiation, and optical pulses with lengths ranging from milliseconds to 100 femtoseconds [4], and from analysis of temperature dependent relaxation [3], both indicating its ultrafast antiferromagnetic nature.
[2] Wadley, P. et al., Science 351, 587-590 (2016)
[3] Kašpar, Z. et al., Nature Electronics 4, 30–37 (2021)
[4] Olejník, K. et al., Science Advances 4, eaar3566 (2018)