Electrically controlled switching of antiferromagnets via proximity interaction induced by topological insulator

Abstract

Here, we propose an electrical control of antiferromagnet (AFM) by utilizing the proximity interaction between a topological insulator (TI) and an AFM. Following the Bennett clocking scheme, this mechanism shows much faster switching speed and higher logic reliabilities compared to its ferromagnetic counterpart according to micro-magnetic simulations. Consequently, both switching period and power consumption are reduced by 2–3 orders of magnitude making the TI-AFM system a better candidate for spintronic applications.