Fast domain wall motion in the vicinity of the angular momentum compensation temperature of ferrimagnets

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic spintronics is an emerging research field which aims to utilize antiferromagnets as core elements in spintronic devices(1,2). A central motivation towards this direction is that antiferromagnetic spin dynamics is expected to be much faster than its ferromagnetic counterpart(3). Recent theories indeed predicted faster dynamics of antiferromagnetic domain walls (DWs) than ferromagnetic DWs(4-6). However, experimental investigations of antiferromagnetic spin dynamics have remained unexplored, mainly because of the magnetic field immunity of antiferromagnets(7). Here we show that fast field-driven antiferromagnetic spin dynamics is realized in ferrimagnets at the angular momentum compensation point TA. Using rare earth-3d-transition metal ferrimagnetic compounds where net magnetic moment is nonzero at TA, the field-driven DW mobility is remarkably enhanced up to 20 km s(-1) T-1. The collective coordinate approach generalized for ferrimagnets(8) and atomistic spin model simulations(6,9) show that this remarkable enhancement is a consequence of antiferromagnetic spin dynamics at TA. Our finding allows us to investigate the physics of antiferromagnetic spin dynamics and highlights the importance of tuning of the angular momentum compensation point of ferrimagnets, which could be a key towards ferrimagnetic spintronics.