Reduced thermal stability of antiferromagnetic nanostructures

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic materials hold promising prospects in novel types of spintronics applications. Assessing the stability of antiferromagnetic nanostructures against thermal excitations is a crucial aspect of designing devices with a high information density. Here we use theoretical calculations and numerical simulations to determine the mean switching time of antiferromagnetic nanoparticles in the superparamagnetic limit. It is demonstrated that the thermal stability is drastically reduced compared to ferromagnetic particles in the limit of low Gilbert damping, attributed to the exchange enhancement of the attempt frequencies. It is discussed how the system parameters have to be engineered in order to optimize the switching rates in antiferromagnetic nanoparticles.