Antiferromagnetic Materials

APL102 Term Paper-application of antiferromagnets
Samarth Goyal || 2018CH10239
Introduction
Magnets find a variety of uses from fridge magnets to the strips on the backs of credit cards. These
are examples of hard magnets, which retain their magnetic properties easily. Our focus in this paper,
however, is on antiferromagnets, which, though identified for decades, were long perceived to be
an interesting but useless phenomenon, and thus received less interest than ferromagnetic
materials. Recent researches, however, have led to a renewed interest in these materials.
The phenomenon of individual atomic magnetic moments aligning all other atomic magnetic
moments with themselves, within a material, is known as exchange interaction, and the energy
associated with this phenomenon is known as exchange interaction energy. Antiferromagnetic
materials have negative exchange energy, and the magnetic moments spontaneously align
antiparallel to the magnetic field applied (opposite to ferromagnetic materials, where moments
align parallel to the magnetic field applied), at temperatures below the critical temperature, and
alignment persists even after removal of the external field. This critical temperature is called the
Neel Temperature, above which the material behaves Para magnetically. (As taught in lectures)
Img1: Antiferromagnetic antiparallel orientation of magnetic moments Img2: Temperature dependence of antiferromagnets.
Antiferromagnets are typically ceramics of sulphur or oxygen, with transition metals like iron,
manganese, nickel and cobalt. It is the transition metal sublattice whose magnetic moments
respond to an external magnetic field, below Neel Temperature. The magnetic moments of the
oxide or sulphide sublattice spontaneously respond to the magnetization of the metal lattice, by
aligning in the reverse direction, but with same magnitude. The oxygen or sulphur ions’ alignments
essentially control the order of the magnetic spin of metal ions.
Application
Though interesting, antiferromagnets do not find much use, because of their lack of spontaneous
magnetization. As their structural magnetization is close to ferrimagnets, they are used in
combination with ferromagnets to test theoretical models for the explanation of ferrimagnetism.
The absence of a net magnetic moment makes them useful for use as magnetic reference points in
magnetic sensors. An emerging use of antiferromagnets is their contribution to superconductivity, in
the form of materials that exhibit both antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic transition states.
Research:
Detecting Dark Matter using Axionic Topological Antiferromagnets
Antiferromagnetically doped topological insulators, or ATIs, are being considered to host axion
polaritons and dynamical axion fields. (Marsh, Fong, Lentz, 2019) Axion polaritons are weakly
interacting quasiparticles, which are analogous to the dark axion, a candidate dark matter particle,
which has long been sought after. Using the antiferromagnetic resonance of quasiparticle in ATIs
presents a feasible method to detect axion dark matter of mass 0.7 to 0.35 meV, when used with
low-noise methods of THz proton detection. This range of mass 0.7 to 0.35 meV is presently out of
reach of alternate experiments and proposals of detection of dark matter. The merits of this route at
high frequency are the use of larger volumes of ATI samples, larger than 1 mm^3, and the flexibility
of ATI resonance, which is easily tuned by applied magnetic field.
Antiferromagnetically doped topological insulators are advantageous, as they are invariant to the
combination of primitive-lattice translation symmetries, and time-reversal, as compared to
magnetic topological insulator, whose varied magnetic and electronic properties affects
observations at low temperatures. (Otrokov, M. & Klimovskikh, 2019)
Faster, Denser, and More Robust Next-Generation Devices using Antiferromagnets

Magnetic materials are a key component in computing technology because of their ability to store
information permanently. Modern technology is based on ferromagnets, as their states can be
flipped easily by application of magnetic fields. However, ferromagnets are slow in operation, and
are easily influenced by stray magnetic fields, due to which they cannot be stored close together,
and are prone to errors. Antiferromagnets, unlike ferromagnets, have no net magnetic moment,
thus are not affected by stray fields, and can be scaled to much smaller sizes. They also respond
faster than present devices, with frequency reaching several terahertz, but their magnetic state is
very difficult to control.
In a novel approach, light of terahertz frequency is used to magnetize crystals of antiferromagnetic

material, by the process of piezomagnetism.(Disa, Fechner, Nova, Liu, Foerst, Prabhakaran, Radaelli,
Cavalleri, 2020) This phenomenon, which is usually achieved by applying pressure (a slow process,
that can break the crystal), relies upon exciting lattice vibrations called phonons, that are achieved
by carefully tailored pulses of light. Structural distortions are produced by tuning the polarization
and frequency of light, instead of straining the crystal, which creates a magnetization that is 400
times larger than ever achieved before. Only 100 picoseconds were taken to achieves this
magnetization, which is a major headway in optical control of material properties.
Superconductivity at Metal-Antiferromagnetic Insulator Interfaces

Magnons in antiferromagnetic insulators strongly couple to conduction electrons of adjacent
metals, which can lead to superconductivity in a trilayer, which consists of two antiferromagnetic
materials sandwiching a metal in between. (Fjærbu, Rohling, Brataas, 2019) Increasing interface
coupling increases the strength of the electron-electron coupling induced, and thus, the critical
temperature. Scattering at metal-antiferromagnetic interfaces causes d-wave pairing, in contrast to
ferromagnets, which have p-wave superconductivity.
Conclusion
Antiferromagnets may have been thought of as useless in the past, but they are a field of cutting-
edge research in the present and maybe a mainstay in the technology of the future. These materials
are the basis of a number of major advances in various fields from superconductors to computing to
dark matter. New experiments and research continue to pave the way for greater use of
antiferromagnets, and their various unique properties, which were only of theoretical interest a
short while ago, now are being exploited for a number of practical applications.
References:
1. Duo, Lamberto, Marco Finazzi, Franco Ciccacci. (2010). Magnetic Properties of Antiferromagnetic Oxide
Materials. KGaA, Weinheim: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co.
2. Hummel, Rolf E. (2011). Electronic Properties of Materials, 4th ed. New York, NY: Springer
Science+Business Media, LLC.
3. Spaldin, Nicola. (2003) Magnetic Materials Fundamentals and Device Applications. Cambridge, United
Kingdom: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
4. Aharoni A. Magnetostatic energy of a ferromagnetic sphere.Journal of Applied Physics, 51(11), 5906-
5908 (1980).
5. David J. E. Marsh, Kin Chung Fong, Erik W. Lentz, Libor Šmejkal, and Mazhar N. Ali,Phys. Rev. Lett. 123,
121601 – 2019
6. Polarizing an antiferromagnet by optical engineering of the crystal eld Ankit S. Disa, Michael Fechner et
al. Nature Physics, 2020
7. Superconductivity at metal-antiferromagnetic insulator interfaces, Eirik Løhaugen Fjærbu, Niklas
Rohling, and Arne Brataas, Phys. Rev. B 100, 125432 – Pu 2019

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APL102 Term Paper-application of antiferromagnets

Samarth Goyal || 2018CH10239

Faster, Denser, and More Robust Next-Generation Devices using Antiferromagnets

In a novel approach, light of terahertz frequency is used to magnetize crystals of antiferromagnetic

Superconductivity at Metal-Antiferromagnetic Insulator Interfaces

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