Octupole-driven magnetoresistance in an antiferromagnetic tunnel junction

Abstract

The tunnelling electric current passing through a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) is strongly dependent on the relative orientation of magnetizations in ferromagnetic electrodes sandwiching an insulating barrier, rendering efficient readout of spintronics devices^1-5. Thus, tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR) is considered to be proportional to spin polarization at the interface¹ and, to date, has been studied primarily in ferromagnets. Here we report observation of TMR in an all-antiferromagnetic tunnel junction consisting of Mn₃Sn/MgO/Mn₃Sn (ref. ⁶). We measured a TMR ratio of around 2% at room temperature, which arises between the parallel and antiparallel configurations of the cluster magnetic octupoles in the chiral antiferromagnetic state. Moreover, we carried out measurements using a Fe/MgO/Mn₃Sn MTJ and show that the sign and direction of anisotropic longitudinal spin-polarized current in the antiferromagnet⁷ can be controlled by octupole direction. Strikingly, the TMR ratio (about 2%) of the all-antiferromagnetic MTJ is much larger than that estimated using the observed spin polarization. Theoretically, we found that the chiral antiferromagnetic MTJ may produce a substantially large TMR ratio as a result of the time-reversal, symmetry-breaking polarization characteristic of cluster magnetic octupoles. Our work lays the foundation for the development of ultrafast and efficient spintronic devices using antiferromagnets^8-10.