反強磁性体スピントロニクスとデバイスへの展望

摘要

Spintronics yields novel electronic devices by utilizing both the charge and spin degrees of freedom in a solid. We have seen a flourishing of spintronic applications such as hard disk drives (HDD) and magnetic random access memories (MRAM). However, the majority of spintronics research and applications has so far dealt with ferromagnetism, with much less attention given to to antiferromagnetic materials. Although they have no net magnetization, the microscopic magnetic moments in antiferromagnetic materials can in principle exhibit a similar spintronic effect as seen in ferromagnetic materials. In this paper, we present our recent experimental results of the magnetoresistance and spin torque effect in antiferromagnets, possibly leading to novel antiferromagnetic spintronic applications.