Discover Top Posts Tagged with #antiferromagnetic

Beyond 0 and 1: Ferrotoroidic material can store four magnetic states

Today's computers store information using only two values: 0 and 1. But as electronic devices become smaller and reach their limits, scientists are searching for new ways to pack more information into the same space. One idea is to use magnetism. In some materials, atoms behave like tiny magnets that can arrange themselves in different patterns. If each pattern represents a different value, one memory element could store more than just two possibilities. In a study recently published in Nature Communications, researchers have found a material in which these atomic magnets can form four different magnetic states. They showed that these states can be controlled using electric and magnetic fields and remain stable once created.

AI Uses Crystal Symmetry to Find New Antiferromagnets for Spintronics

A symmetry-guided AI model narrowed 110,000 generated crystals to four stable antiferromagnetic candidates, pointing to a faster computational route for discovering materials that could shape future spintronic memory technologies.

A recent study published in the journal npj Computational Materials introduced a generative deep learning framework for the inverse design of magnetic crystalline materials. Termed “Space Group Crystal Diffusion Variational Autoencoders (SG-CDVAE)”, this model incorporates crystallographic space-group information directly into its latent representation, improving the generation of high-symmetry crystal structures. By combining global crystal symmetries with local atomic arrangements, SG-CDVAE supports more targeted exploration of vast chemical design spaces and identifies materials with targeted magnetic properties. From an initial pool of approximately 110,000 generated crystal structures, the SG-CDVAE generation and high-throughput screening workflow identified 80 high-symmetry antiferromagnetic (AFM) candidates, demonstrating its potential to accelerate computational materials discovery.

Antiferromagnetic metal exhibits diode-like behavior without external magnetic field

Antiferromagnetic (AF) materials are made up of atoms or molecules with atomic spins that align in antiparallel directions of their neighbors. The magnetism of each individual atom or molecule is canceled out by the one next to it to produce zero net magnetization. Researchers in Japan have now discovered that an AF material, NdRu2Al10, has the ability to produce a diode-like effect, meaning electrical current can flow in one direction but not the other (nonreciprocal), similar to the junction of two semiconductors. Their research is published in Physical Review Letters. Breaking time-reversal and spatial-inversion symmetry A similar nonreciprocal charge transport has been found to occur in insulators and in other conductors. However, previous instances of nonreciprocal charge transport in other conductors required the application of an external magnetic field, but NdRu2Al10 requires no such external field.

Physicists have created a new and long-lasting magnetic state in a material, using only light. The results provide a new way to control and

MIT physicists have created a new and long-lasting magnetic state in a material, using only light. In a study that will appear in Nature, the researchers report using a terahertz laser -- a light source that oscillates more than a trillion times per second -- to directly stimulate atoms in an antiferromagnetic material. The laser's oscillations are tuned to the natural vibrations among the material's atoms, in a way that shifts the balance of atomic spins toward a new magnetic state. The results provide a new way to control and switch antiferromagnetic materials, which are of interest for their potential to advance information processing and memory chip technology.

How to Switch an Antiferromagnet

Two main mechanisms can flip the orientation of antiferromagnetic domains. Researchers have determined when one prevails over the other. [...] The magnetizations of the two sublattices that make up an antiferromagnet point in opposite directions, cancelling each other out. But if one of the sublattices breaks inversion symmetry, then flipping both yields a configuration that has different transport properties. With that difference comes the possibility of exploiting antiferromagnets to store and process information. Now Martin Jourdan of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany and his collaborators have found that two different magnetization-flipping mechanisms operate on different timescales [1]. Their results suggest that the flipping mechanism has been misidentified in previous studies.

A new frontier in spintronics: Antiferromagnetic quasicrystals unveiled

Quasicrystals (QCs) are fascinating solid materials that exhibit an intriguing atomic arrangement. Unlike regular crystals, in which atomic arrangements have an ordered repeating pattern, QCs display long-range atomic order that is not periodic. Due to this 'quasiperiodic' nature, QCs have unconventional symmetries that are absent in conventional crystals. Since their Nobel Prize-winning discovery, condensed matter physics researchers have dedicated immense attention toward QCs, attempting to both realize their unique quasiperiodic magnetic order and their possible applications in spintronics and magnetic refrigeration. Ferromagnetism was recently discovered in the gold-gallium-rare earth (Au-Ga-R) icosahedral QCs (iQCs). Yet scientists were not surprised by this observation because translational periodicity—the repeating arrangement of atoms in a crystal—is not a prerequisite for the emergence of ferromagnetic order.

Nonlinear 'skin effect' unveiled in antiferromagnetic materials

A team of researchers has identified a unique phenomenon, a "skin effect," in the nonlinear optical responses of antiferromagnetic materials. The research, published in Physical Review Letters, provides new insights into the properties of these materials and their potential applications in advanced technologies. Nonlinear optical effects occur when light interacts with materials that lack inversion symmetry. It was previously thought that these effects were uniformly distributed throughout the material. However, the research team discovered that in antiferromagnets, the nonlinear optical response can be concentrated on the surfaces, similar to the "skin effect" seen in conductors, where currents flow primarily on the surface. In this study, the team developed a self-designed computational method to investigate the nonlinear optical responses in antiferromagnets, using the bulk photovoltaic effect as a representative example. Their results showed that, while the global inversion symmetry was broken, the local inversion symmetry deep inside the antiferromagnet was almost untouched.

Unique magnetic properties of 2D triangular lattice materials have potential applications for quantum computing

Researchers from a large international team, including ANSTO, have investigated the magnetic properties of two unique 2D triangular lattice antiferromagnetic materials (2D-TLHAF) using various neutron scattering techniques. Multiferroic materials are being explored for use in advanced computers. Their quantum properties make them suitable for future computing applications, as they can manage and process the significantly larger volume of information more efficiently. Additionally, the unique properties of 2D magnets, such as flexibility and stackability, which is an ability to control layers of quantum devices or materials to create more efficient systems, have applications in magnetism and spintronics. The materials, hexagonal h-Lu0.3Y0.7MnO3 and h-Lu0.47Sc0.53FeO3, are a type of frustrated antiferromagnet, which means that the spins of the atoms in the material cannot all align in a way that minimizes their energy due to the triangular arrangement of the lattice.

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