Antiferromagnets prove their potential for spin-based information technology

Within the emerging field of spin-based electronics, or spintronics, information is typically defined by the orientation of the magnetization of ferromagnets. Researchers have recently been also interested in the utilization of antiferromagnets, which are materials without macroscopic magnetization but with a staggered orientation of their microscopic magnetic moments. Here the information is encoded in the direction of the modulation of the magnetic moments, the so-called Néel vector. In princ...