Flexomagnetism and vertically graded Néel temperature of antiferromagnetic Cr 2 O 3 thin films.
Pavlo MakushkoTobias KosubOleksandr V PylypovskyiNatascha HedrichJiang LiAlexej PashkinStanislav AvdoshenkoRené HübnerFabian GanssDaniel WolfAxel LubkMaciej Oskar LiedkeMaik ButterlingAndreas WagnerKai WagnerBrendan J ShieldsPaul LehmannIgor VeremchukJürgen FaßbenderPatrick MaletinskyDenys MakarovPublished in: Nature communications (2022)
Antiferromagnetic insulators are a prospective materials platform for magnonics, spin superfluidity, THz spintronics, and non-volatile data storage. A magnetomechanical coupling in antiferromagnets offers vast advantages in the control and manipulation of the primary order parameter yet remains largely unexplored. Here, we discover a new member in the family of flexoeffects in thin films of Cr 2 O 3 . We demonstrate that a gradient of mechanical strain can impact the magnetic phase transition resulting in the distribution of the Néel temperature along the thickness of a 50-nm-thick film. The inhomogeneous reduction of the antiferromagnetic order parameter induces a flexomagnetic coefficient of about 15 μ B nm -2 . The antiferromagnetic ordering in the inhomogeneously strained films can persist up to 100 °C, rendering Cr 2 O 3 relevant for industrial electronics applications. Strain gradient in Cr 2 O 3 thin films enables fundamental research on magnetomechanics and thermodynamics of antiferromagnetic solitons, spin waves and artificial spin ice systems in magnetic materials with continuously graded parameters.
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