Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya induced spin-transfer torques in kagome antiferromagnets

In recent years antiferromagnets (AFMs) have become very promising for nanoscale spintronic applications due to their unique properties, such as THz dynamics and the absence of stray fields. Manipulating antiferromagnetic textures is currently, however, limited to very few exceptional material symmetry classes allowing for staggered torques on the magnetic sublattices. In this work, we predict for kagome AFMs with broken mirror symmetry a new coupling mechanism between antiferromagnetic domain walls (DWs) and spin currents, produced by the relativistic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). We microscopically derive the DMI's free-energy contribution for the kagome AFMs. Unlike ferromagnets and collinear AFMs, the DMI does not lead to terms linear in the spatial derivatives, but instead renormalizes the spin-wave stiffness and anisotropy energies. Importantly, we show that the DMI induces a highly nontrivial, twisted DW profile that is controllable via two linearly independent components of the spin accumulation. This texture manipulation mechanism goes beyond the concept of staggered torques and implies a higher degree of tunability for the current-driven DW motion compared to conventional ferromagnets and collinear AFMs.

Automated summary

In recent years, antiferromagnets (AFMs) have shown great potential for nanoscale spintronic applications due to their unique properties. However, manipulating antiferromagnetic textures is currently only possible in a few exceptional material symmetry classes. In this study, we predict a new coupling mechanism between antiferromagnetic domain walls (DWs) and spin currents in kagome AFMs with broken mirror symmetry, through the relativistic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). We derive the DMI's free-energy contribution for kagome AFMs and show that it induces a highly nontrivial, twisted DW profile that can be controlled through the spin accumulation.