Effects of torsion and curvature in antiferromagnetic spin chains


Effects of torsion and curvature in antiferromagnetic spin chains

Pylypovskyi, O.; Kononenko, D. Y.; Yershov, K.; Roessler, U.; Tomilo, A.; Faßbender, J.; van den Brink, J.; Makarov, D.; Sheka, D.

Antiferromagnets represent a wide class of technologically promising materials for spintronic and spinorbirtonic devices with multiple magnetic sublattices [1]. An efficient manipulation of antiferromagnetic textures requires the presence of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), which is present in crystals of special symmetry, and thus limits the number of available materials. In contrast to antiferromagnets, it is already established that in ferromagnetic thin films and nanowires chiral responses can be tailored relying on curvilinear geometries [2]. Here, we explore curvature effects in curvilinear antiferromagnets which are stemming from exchange interaction [3]. It is shown that intrinsically achiral curvilinear antiferromagnetic spin chains behave as a biaxial chiral helimagnet with a curvature-tunable anisotropy and DMI. In contrast to ferromagnetic spin chains, the dipolar interaction leads to the hard-axis anisotropy. This allows to observe the effects of geometry even in chains with small curvature and torsion because of absence of other competing easy axis anisotropies except the geometry-induced one. The latter determines the homogeneous antiferromagnetic state at low curvatures and the gap for spin waves. The geometry-driven DMI determines the helimagnetic phase transition and leads to the appearance of the region with the negative group velocity at the dispersion curve. We note, that the anisotropy in curvilinear antiferromagnetic spin chains is an additional source of geometry-driven effects on magnetic textures [4].

Keywords: antiferromagnetism; curvilinear magnetism; spin chains

  • Lecture (Conference) (Online presentation)
    Curvilinear Condensed Matter: Fundamentals and Applications 717. WE-Heraeus-Seminar, 24.-26.06.2021, Bad Honnef, Germany

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Publ.-Id: 33289