Dresden 2026 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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FM: Fachverband Funktionsmaterialien

FM 8: Multiferroics and Magnetoelectric Coupling (joint session MA/FM)

FM 8.6: Vortrag

Dienstag, 10. März 2026, 10:45–11:00, POT/0112

Electric control of antiferromagnetic states in an insulator — •Somnath Ghara¹, Maximilian Winkler¹, Sebastian Schmid^1,2, Lilian Prodan¹, Korbinian Geirhos¹, Vladimir Tsurkan^1,3, Wenbo Ge⁴, Weida Wu⁴, András Halbritter², Stephan Krohns¹, and István Kézsmárki¹ — ¹EP5, Institute of Physics, University of Augsburg, Germany — ²Department of Physics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary — ³Institute of Applied Physics, Moldova State University, Republic of Moldova — ⁴Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, USA

Electric control of antiferromagnetic (AFM) order is highly desirable for the development of ultrafast and energy-efficient spintronic devices. In this talk, I will show that the strong linear magnetoelectric coupling in the collinear AFM insulator Co₃O₄ enables full isothermal control of AFM order by electric fields deep within its AFM phase, i.e. the Néel vector can be either reversed instantaneously or rotated smoothly. Importantly, we found that even in macroscopic volumes of Co₃O₄, the non-volatile switching between time-reversed AFM states occurs on timescales as short as a few tens of nanoseconds. These observations suggest that the quasi-cubic AFM insulators, such as Co₃O₄, provide an ideal platform for ultrafast manipulation of microscopic AFM domains and may lead to the realization of antiferromagnet-based spintronic devices.

Ref: S. Ghara et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 126704 (2025).

Keywords: Magnetoelectric; Antiferromagnet; Oxide; Insulator