Topic
Magnetism and spintronics research, explained
8 open-access magnetism and spintronics studies, each with a flashcard deck and a quiz.
- How does an electric current flip a thick antiferromagnet?
Current flips thick Mn3Sn layers not by spin torque alone but by heating them to their ordering temperature and letting a spin current set the interface as they cool, which then templates the whole layer.
- Is the Rashba spin texture really as simple as textbooks say?
In a material with giant Rashba splitting, the electron states mix different atomic orbitals, and each orbital piece carries its own spin pattern, so the simple counter-rotating spin picture is incomplete.
- Can a small voltage flip magnetic coupling between thin layers?
Pumping hydrogen into a metal spacer with a small gate voltage reversibly weakens and shifts the coupling between two magnetic layers, even flipping it from parallel to antiparallel.
- Can magnetic order switch how excitons behave in a crystal?
In the layered magnet CrSBr, antiferromagnetic order traps excitons in single layers as nearly one-dimensional, tightly bound pairs, and destroying that order by heating or a small magnetic field lets them spread and weakens their binding.
- Can magnetic disorder make a metal shrink when it is heated?
In granular FePt, laser heating first makes the crystal contract because disordering the spins pulls the lattice in, and this contraction disappears if the spins are already disordered.
- Can bending a magnetic membrane rewrite its hidden magnetic order?
Thin haematite membranes peeled off their substrates still host whirling antiferromagnetic textures, and bending or stretching them can switch the magnetic state without changing temperature.
- Which real magnets could host topological spin waves at room temperature?
A symmetry-based screen of known magnetic materials identified twelve room-temperature magnetic insulators predicted to host topologically protected spin waves once a field or strain is applied.
- Can removing stray iron atoms change a magnet's surface order?
Stripping the extra iron atoms from the surface of iron telluride with an STM tip switches its magnetic pattern from a single stripe or spiral order to a checkerboard-like double-q order once the crystal lattice is less distorted.