Chaotic precession of antiferromagnetic domain walls

Abstract

In contrast with extensive investigations on the translation of domain walls (DWs) in antiferromagnetic (AFM) materials, the precessional motion of an AFM DW is seldom concerned partly because of the lack of an effective driving method. In this Letter, we show that under an alternating spin-polarized current with polarization along the AFM anisotropy axis, an AFM DW can be excited to precess. Especially, chaotic precession occurs at a moderate interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), which contributes to a nonlinear term in the dynamic equation of DW precession. Crisis-induced intermittent chaos appears when the current density is higher than a critical value. This Letter not only paves a way to unravel the rich dynamics of a current-induced AFM texture but also provides guidelines for developing ultrafast spintronic devices to exploit the nonlinear chaotic magnetization dynamics with promising applications.