X-ray imaging of antiferromagnetic octupole domains in Mn$_3$Sn

Abstract

Novel antiferromagnets with broken time reversal symmetry (TRS) have launched a new direction in spintronics research, combining the advantageous dynamical properties of conventional antiferromagnets with the controllability typically associated with ferromagnets. However, antiferromagnetic domains are notoriously challenging to image in real-space. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) offers a route to overcome this difficulty: XMCD contrast may be finite in TRS-breaking antiferromagnets with an appropriate magnetic space group. Here, we exploit this to image the octupole domains in a focused ion beam-fabricated device of the non-collinear antiferromagnet Mn$_3$Sn. Using scanning transmission x-ray microscopy, we spatially resolve the weak pre-edge XMCD contrast (of 0.2%) that is sensitive to $T_z$, achieving a contrast resolution better than 0.02%. We observe hysteretic switching of the octupole order through both the XMCD contrast and the corresponding anomalous Hall effect within the same device. These results confirm the bulk nature of this contrast, and establish XMCD-based microscopy as a powerful real space imaging method for TRS-breaking antiferromagnets, including altermagnets, enabling future studies of their dynamics, switching, and symmetry-tunable phenomena.