TY - JOUR AU - Wadley, P. AU - Howells, B. AU - Zelezny, J. AU - Andrews, C. AU - Hills, V. AU - Campion, R. P. AU - Novak, V. AU - Olejnik, K. AU - Maccherozzi, F. AU - Dhesi, S. S. AU - Martin, S. Y. AU - Wagner, T. AU - Wunderlich, J. AU - Freimuth, F. AU - Mokrousov, Y. AU - Kunes, J. S. AU - Chauhan, J. S. AU - Grzybowski, M. J. AU - Rushforth, A. W. AU - Edmonds, K. W. AU - Gallagher, B. L. AU - Jungwirth, T. TI - Electrical switching of an antiferromagnet JO - Science VL - 351 IS - 6273 SN - 1095-9203 CY - Washington, DC [u.a.] PB - American Association for the Advancement of Science64196 M1 - FZJ-2016-00558 SP - 587-590 PY - 2016 AB - Antiferromagnets are hard to control by external magnetic fields because of the alternating directions of magnetic moments on individual atoms and the resulting zero net magnetization. However, relativistic quantum mechanics allows for generating current-induced internal fields whose sign alternates with the periodicity of the antiferromagnetic lattice. Using these fields, which couple strongly to the antiferromagnetic order, we demonstrate room-temperature electrical switching between stable configurations in antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin-film devices by applied current with magnitudes of order 106 ampere per square centimeter. Electrical writing is combined in our solid-state memory with electrical readout and the stored magnetic state is insensitive to and produces no external magnetic field perturbations, which illustrates the unique merits of antiferromagnets for spintronics. LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000369291600036 C6 - pmid:26841431 DO - DOI:10.1126/science.aab1031 UR - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/280837 ER -