Room-temperature chirality switching in a helimagnetic thin film
Helimagnetic structures, in which the magnetic moments are spirally ordered,
host an internal degree of freedom called chirality (or helicity) corresponding
to the handedness of the helix. The chirality seems quite robust against
disturbances and is therefore promising for next-generation magnetic memory.
While the chirality control was recently achieved by the magnetic field sweep
with the application of an electric current at low temperature in a conducting
helimagnet, problems such as low working temperature and cumbersome control
sequence have to be solved in practical applications. Another issue is the thin
film fabrication that enables the development of spintronic devices based on
helimagnets. Here we show chirality switching by electric current pulses at
room temperature in a thin-film MnAu$_2$ helimagnetic conductor. The result
demonstrates the feasibility of helimagnet-based spintronics that can overcome
all the above problems.
Authors
Hidetoshi Masuda, Takeshi Seki, Yoichi Nii, Hiroto Masuda, Koki Takanashi, Yoshinori Onose