Spin Hall effects in metallic antiferromagnets – perspectives for future spin-orbitronics

• Main Authors: Joseph Sklenar, Wei Zhang, Matthias B. Jungfleisch, Wanjun Jiang, Hilal Saglam, John E. Pearson, John B. Ketterson, Axel Hoffmann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIP Publishing LLC 2016-05-01
• Series: AIP Advances
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4943758

We investigate angular dependent spin-orbit torques from the spin Hall effect in a metallic antiferromagnet using the spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance technique. The large spin Hall effect exists in PtMn, a prototypical CuAu-I-type metallic antiferromagnet. By applying epitaxial growth, we previously reported an appreciable difference in spin-orbit torques for c- and a-axis orientated samples, implying anisotropic effects in magnetically ordered materials. In this work we demonstrate through bipolar-magnetic-field experiments a small but noticeable asymmetric behavior in the spin-transfer-torque that appears as a hysteresis effect. We also suggest that metallic antiferromagnets may be good candidates for the investigation of various unidirectional effects related to novel spin-orbitronics phenomena.