Abstract
Magnetic information is usually stored in ferromagnets, where the ↑ and ↓ spin states are distinguishable due to time-reversal symmetry breaking. These states induce opposite signs of the Hall effect proportional to magnetization, which is widely used for their electrical read-out. By contrast, conventional antiferromagnets with a collinear antiparallel spin configuration cannot host such functions, because of symmetry (time-reversal followed by translation t symmetry) and lack of macroscopic magnetization. Here we report the experimental observation of a spontaneous Hall effect in the collinear antiferromagnet FeS at room temperature. In this compound, the ↑↓ and ↓↑ spin states induce opposite signs of the spontaneous Hall effect. Our analysis suggests that this does not reflect magnetization, but rather originates from a fictitious magnetic field associated with the -symmetry-broken antiferromagnetic order. The present results pave the way for electrical reading and writing of the ↑↓ and ↓↑ spin states in conductive systems at room temperature, and suggest that -symmetry-broken collinear antiferromagnets can serve as an information medium with vanishingly small magnetization.
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Acknowledgements
We thank S. Hayami, Y. Motome, A. Tsukazaki, N. D. Khanh and R. Yoshimi for enlightening discussions and experimental help. This work was partly supported by Grants-In-Aid for Scientific Research (grant nos 18H03685, 19H05825, 20H00349, 20K21067, 21H04440, 21H04990, 21K13876, 21K18595, 21H04437, 22H04965, 24H02235 and 24K00579) from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); PRESTO (grant nos JPMJPR18L5, JPMJPR20B4, JPMJPR20L7 and JPMJPR23Q3); and CREST (grant no JPMJCR23O4) from Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). S.S. acknowledges support from the Katsu Research Encouragement Award and UTEC-UTokyo FSI Research Grant Program of the University of Tokyo, Asahi Glass Foundation. S.S. and R.T. acknowledge support from the Murata Science Foundation. S.A. acknowledges support from Hibah PUTI Q1 2024 (grant no. NKB-439/UN2.RST/HKP.05.00/2024) by Universitas Indonesia. This work is based on experiments performed at the Japan Research Reactor 3 and Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility in the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (proposal nos 23520 and 2023S01). The crystal and magnetic structures are illustrated by VESTA software45.
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S.S. and R.T. planned the project. R.T., R.H., Y.S. and H.T. prepared the samples and performed the magnetization and electrical transport measurements. T. Nomoto, R.O. and R.A. performed the theoretical calculations. J.-i.Y. performed the X-ray scattering experiments. A.K., K.Y., H.I., S.A., H.S., S.I. and T. Nakajima performed the neutron scattering experiments. D.N.-H. performed the scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy experiments. S.S. wrote the manuscript with the support by R.T. and T. Nomoto. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Takagi, R., Hirakida, R., Settai, Y. et al. Spontaneous Hall effect induced by collinear antiferromagnetic order at room temperature. Nat. Mater. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-02058-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-02058-w
