Exploring the Energy Landscape of Resistive Switching in Antiferromagnetic Sr<sub>3</sub>Ir<sub>2</sub>O<sub>7</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

Antiferromagnetic (AFM) materials are expected to improve stability, scalability, and speed of magnetic memory applications thanks to the insensitivity of AFMs to magnetic fields and their high natural frequencies. Of particular interest are AFM transition metal oxides (TMO) as their properties can be tuned using various external stimuli, thus opening an entirely new dimension to the field of spintronics. We have previously demonstrated that the transport properties of AFM TMOs can be tuned by an externally applied electric field [1] – a reversible resistive switching induced by an electric bias was found in Sr3Ir2O7 and tentatively attributed to electric-field driven lattice distortions/structural transition. In this work, we probe the energy barrier associated with this transition using time-resolved measurements of the switching. We observed an exponential dependence of the switching probability on both applied bias and temperature consistent with thermal activation over an energy barrier. [1] C. Wang et al. Phys. Rev. B 92, 115136 (2015); H. Seinige et al. ibid 94, 214434 (2016)

*Supported in part by NSF DMR 1712101 and 1122603, by KAUST OSR under Award No. OSR-2015-CRG4-2626, and by C-SPIN, one of six centers of STARnet, a SRC program, sponsored by MARCO and DARPA.

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Presenters

  • Morgan Williamson

    • Physics Department, University of Texas at Austin

Authors

  • Morgan Williamson

    • Physics Department, University of Texas at Austin

  • Shida Shen

    • Physics Department, University of Texas at Austin
    • Univ of Texas, Austin

  • Gang Cao

    • Physics, Univ of Colorado - Boulder
    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado-Boulder
    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder
    • Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Colorado Boulder
    • Department of Physics, Univ of Colorado - Boulder
    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado
    • University of Colorado at Boulder

  • Jianshi Zhou

    • Univ of Texas
    • University of Texas
    • University of Texas at Austin
    • Texas Materials Institute, University of Texas at Austin
    • Univ of Texas, Austin
    • Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
    • University of Texas, at Austin

  • John Goodenough

    • Texas Materials Institute, University of Texas at Austin

  • Maxim Tsoi

    • Physics Department, University of Texas at Austin
    • Univ of Texas, Austin