Spin-Orbit Torque-Induced Field-Free Switching of a Perpendicular Antiferromagnet

The field-free spin-orbit torque induced 180° reorientation of perpendicular magnetization is a key step to the development of ultrafast magnetic memory based on the antiferromagnetic material (AFM). In this paper, we propose a trilayer AFM/Insulator/Heavy Metal structure as the AFM memory device and achieve field-free switching by using two orthogonal currents. These two currents provide uniform damping-like torque and stagger field-like torque, respectively. A current density of 1.79×10 11 A/m 2 is sufficient to induce the switching within 40 picoseconds. The device and switching mechanism proposed in this work offer a promising approach to deterministically switch the AFM with perpendicular Néel vector.