Anisotropic long-range spin transport in canted antiferromagnetic orthoferrite YFeO<sub>3</sub>.

Das, Shubhankar; Ross, A; Ma, X X; Becker, S; Schmitt, C; van Duijn, F; Galindez-Ruales, E F; Fuhrmann, F et al. · Nat Commun · 2022

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

In antiferromagnets, the efficient transport of spin-waves has until now only been observed in the insulating antiferromagnet hematite, where circularly (or a superposition of pairs of linearly) polarized spin-waves diffuse over long distances. Here, we report long-distance spin-transport in the antiferromagnetic orthoferrite YFeO<sub>3</sub>, where a different transport mechanism is enabled by the combined presence of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and externally applied fields. The magnon decay length is shown to exceed hundreds of nanometers, in line with resonance measurements that highlight the low magnetic damping. We observe a strong anisotropy in the magnon decay lengths that we can attribute to the role of the magnon group velocity in the transport of spin-waves in antiferromagnets. This unique mode of transport identified in YFeO<sub>3</sub> opens up the possibility of a large and technologically relevant class of materials, i.e., canted antiferromagnets, for long-distance spin transport.