Recent progress in antiferromagnetic dynamics

¹ Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University - 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands
² Center for Advanced Quantum Studies and Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University Beijing 100875, China
³ Center for Quantum Spintronics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology - NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
⁴ Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology - P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
⁵ Physics Department, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong
⁶ HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute - Shenzhen 518057, China

^(a) zyuan@bnu.edu.cn
^(b) phxwan@ust.hk

Received: 27 October 2020
Accepted: 15 December 2020

Abstract

Spintronics, since its inception, has mainly focused on ferromagnetic materials for manipulating the spin degree of freedom in addition to the charge degree of freedom, whereas much less attention has been paid to antiferromagnetic materials. Thanks to the advances of micro-nano-fabrication techniques and the electrical control of the Néel order parameter, antiferromagnetic spintronics is booming as a result of abundant room temperature materials, robustness against external fields and dipolar coupling, and rapid dynamics in the terahertz regime. For the purpose of applications of antiferromagnets, it is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of the antiferromagnetic dynamics at the microscopic level. Here, we first review the general form of equations that govern both antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic dynamics. This general form unifies the previous theories in the literature. We also provide a survey for the recent progress related to antiferromagnetic dynamics, including the motion of antiferromagnetic domain walls and skyrmions, the spin pumping and quantum antiferromagnetic spintronics. In particular, open problems in several topics are outlined. Furthermore, we discuss the development of antiferromagnetic quantum magnonics and its potential integration with modern information science and technology.