Electrical Manipulation of a Topological Antiferromagnetic State

Abstract

Electrical manipulation of emergent phenomena due to nontrivial band topology is a key to realize next-generation technology using topological protection. A Weyl semimetal is a three-dimensional gapless system that hosts Weyl fermions as low-energy quasiparticles. It exhibits various exotic phenomena such as large anomalous Hall effect (AHE) and chiral anomaly, which have robust properties due to the topologically protected Weyl nodes. To manipulate such phenomena, the magnetic version of Weyl semimetals would be useful as a magnetic texture may provide a handle for controlling the locations of Weyl nodes in the Brillouin zone. Moreover, given the prospects of antiferromagnetic (AF) spintronics for realizing high-density devices with ultrafast operation, it would be ideal if one could electrically manipulate an AF Weyl metal. However, no report has appeared on the electrical manipulation of a Weyl metal. Here we demonstrate the electrical switching of a topological AF state and its detection by AHE at room temperature. In particular, we employ a polycrystalline thin film of the AF Weyl metal Mn$_3$Sn, which exhibits zero-field AHE. Using the bilayer device of Mn$_3$Sn and nonmagnetic metals (NMs), we find that an electrical current density of $\sim 10^{10}$-$10^{11}$ A/m$^2$ in NMs induces the magnetic switching with a large change in Hall voltage, and besides, the current polarity along a bias field and the sign of the spin Hall angle $\theta_{\rm SH}$ of NMs [Pt ($\theta_{\rm SH} > 0$), Cu($\theta_{\rm SH} \sim 0$), W ($\theta_{\rm SH} < 0$)] determines the sign of the Hall voltage. Notably, the electrical switching in the antiferromagnet is made using the same protocol as the one used for ferromagnetic metals. Our observation may well lead to another leap in science and technology for topological magnetism and AF spintronics.