Antiferromagnetic domain wall creep driven by magnetoelectric effect

Abstract

We observed the magnetoelectric induced domain wall propagation in a Pt/Co/Au/Cr2O3/Pt stacked thin film based on magnetic domain observations using scanning soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism microscopy. The antiferromagnetic (Cr2O3) domain wall velocity was estimated by a quasi-static approach using a pulsed voltage. At a pulse voltage amplitude of −12 V, corresponding to an electric field of −8.0 × 102 kV/cm, the domain wall velocity was very low, at 0.3 m/s. The domain wall velocity increased with increasing voltage amplitude, reaching 22 m/s at −20 V (−1.3 × 103 kV/cm). The change in the domain wall velocity with the applied voltage amplitude indicates the creep motion of the domain wall. Using a phenomenological model, we estimated the domain wall depinning energy, and found that the bulk and interface terms of the magnetic anisotropy affect the effective magnetic field to the same degree, suggesting that the magnetic domain wall motion may be controllable by the antiferromagnetic layer thickness.