Work

Antiferromagnetic local volatile memory utilizing non-collinear Mn3Sn thin films and chiral gating

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Spintronics leverages the intrinsic spin of electrons, in addition to their charge. This was utilized to realize magneto-resistive memory devices. To increase the density of such devices antiferromagnetic materials can be used. However, it is not simple to read and write an antiferromagnetic memory. In this work, the use of non-collinear antiferromagnetic thin films of Mn3Sn and chiral gating was utilized to achieve local, efficient antiferromagnetic memory. By integrating a gate electrode above adsorbed chiral molecules, an electric field modulation was generated on the chiral layer. This electric dipole is transformed into a spin dipole through the chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect, enhancing the ferromagnetic component and boosting the Hall response. This scheme enables writing and erasing the memory without the need for external magnetic field with large signal-to-noise ratio. Lastly, a theoretical model is presented to describe the influence of chiral-induced symmetry breaking on the spin-dependent transport contributions to the Hall signal. The robustness and reversibility of this effect pave the way for realizing highly dense magnetic memory. Antiferromagnetic materials are promising for spintronics as they allow higher device densities, yet reading and writing antiferromagnetic memories remains challenging. Here, the authors employ non-collinear antiferromagnetic Mn₃Sn films and chiral gating to achieve efficient, high-density memory, utilizing the chiral-induced spin selectivity effect to enhance the Hall response and enable robust, reversible memory operations without external magnetic fields.

Source: Communications Materials

DOI: 10.1038/s43246-025-00954-5