Observation of the magnetic cluster octupole domain evolution in antiferromagnet Mn3Ge

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic (AFM) spintronics is an emerging subject where one tries to exploit the indispensable properties of AFMs for spintronics such as negligible stray fields and terahertz resonance frequencies. Unfavorably, small electric, and magnetic responses make it difficult to write and read the information in AFM spintronic devices. Thus, from the applied perspective, it is crucial to search the AFM materials having manipulable AFM order. Mn3Ge and Mn3Sn are novel functional AFMs that exhibit magnetic responses comparable to FMs1,2. The magnetic states characterized by magnetic cluster octupoles (MCOs) are tunable under a small external magnetic field. Thus, data writing and reading can be realized by inductively using a recording head, likewise FMs. A recent numerical simulation predicts an antiferromagnetic domain wall (AFDW) velocity up to 2 km/s without a walker break down3. A pulse current could drive such AFDW under the threshold current density of 109 A/m2, two or three orders of magnitude smaller than in FMs4. Thus, it could open a new avenue for racetrack memory applications to overcome the shortcomings of low velocity and high energy consumption of ferromagnetic domain walls. Besides, the multistate of MCOs could generate multilevel magnetic responses rather than conventional two-level memory responses. It may provide a new idea for three-dimensional memory without vertical multilayer architecture. Therefore, the understanding of AFDW structure and dynamics in Mn3Sn and Mn3Ge is indispensable for the memory application.We put our focus on Mn3Ge in this study because it has the native advantages of strong chemical stability in air and robustly retaining the MCO structure down to 0.3 K over the Mn3Sn. We grew Mn3Ge single crystal using the bismuth flux method5. The obtained single crystal sample is a perfect hexagonal column, reflecting the hexagonal crystal structure. We performed polar and longitudinal MOKE measurements at room temperature. Figure 1a shows a polar hysteresis loop measured by laser scanning MOKE microscope. The positive and negative signs of the MOKE signal correspond respectively to oppositely aligned MCOs with the order parameters of α±, as shown in the inset of Fig 1a. Figure 1(b) shows the angular dependence of longitudinal MOKE measurement at room temperature. The intensity of decreased from 5.6 mdeg to 0 deg with increasing from 0° to 90°.Domain observation was furtherly performed by using high-resolution CCD MOKE microscope. Firstly, a magnetic field, up to -100 Oe downwards, which is larger than the saturation field according to the MOKE hysteresis loop in Fig. 1b, was applied to reset the magnetization in the crystal. We subtracted the image background at this state; then, we captured MCO domain images continuously while sweeping the magnetic field from -20 Oe down to 30 Oe with a sweep rate of 2.5 Oe/s, as shown in Fig. 2a. The exposure time of the CCD camera was 50 ms. Firstly, the droplet of the tilted MCO domain appears at 2 Oe. Here, the gray at -100 Oe and the white areas at 25 Oe represent the oppositely polarized MCO domains. The droplet occurs at the surface center due to the nearly zero magnetization in Mn3Ge. Noticeably, the color contrast gradually changes from gray to white within a narrow magnetic field range of about 2 Oe. As the grayscale in the CCD camera is proportional to the out-of-plane component of MCO moment Mz. We can obtain the tilting angle φ of the MCO moment where cosφ = Mz/M, as shown in Fig. 2b. In this way, we can understand how the magnetic octupole evolves during the domain nucleation process. The six-fold symmetry in the kagome plane may offer the possibility of a multilevel MCO memory application. The droplet of the switched domain emerges in the magnetic field range from H1 = 1.875 Oe to H2 = 3 Oe, as shown in Fig. 2c. The decrease in magnetic potential energy compensates for the energy consumed by AFDW. Thus, we have:-μ0(MH2-MH1)×ΔV-σ×ΔS=0where M and, σ denote the MCO moment (7 mµB/Mn) and the 180° AFDW energy density, respectively. ΔV is the volume of the switched MCO domain, and ΔS is the area of nucleated AFDW. We estimated the and by assuming the hemi-ellipsoidal MCO domain beneath the surface, as illustrated in Fig. 2c. The obtained σ is 0.0198 erg/cm2.In conclusion, we have obtained the large MOKE signal, including the polar and longitudinal MOKE. The sizeable MOKE signals enable us visualize the MCO domain optically. Thereby, we systematically studied MCO domain evolution and estimated the AFDW propagation in a single crystal Mn3Ge. Our work provides important insights for the study on the exploitation of the AFDW based memory devices. **