A team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim has discovered an exciting method for controlling spin carried by quantized spin wave excitations in antiferromagnetic insulators.
In today’s information technology, the spin of an electron and the associated magnetic momentum are exploited in applications of information storage and readout of magnetic media, like hard disks and magnetic tapes.
Antiferromagnets: future stars in magnetic data storage?
Both, the storage media and the readout sensors utilize ferromagnetically ordered materials, where all magnetic moments align parallel. However, the moments may orient in a more complex way. In antiferromagnets, the “antagonist to a ferromagnet“, neighboring moments align in an anti-parallel fashion. While these systems look “non-magnetic” from outside, they have attracted broad attention as they promise robustness against external magnetic fields and faster control. Thus, they are considered as the new kids on the block for applications in magnetic storage and unconventional computing.
Source: “Information transport via magnons”, TUM News
