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Switching of an easy plane antiferromagnetic insulator with a sub-nanosecond electrical current pulse

Justin J. Michel, Jose Flores, and Fengyuan Yang*

  • *Contact author: yang.1006@osu.edu
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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074401 – Published 1 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rd8g-crf5

Abstract

Electrical switching of antiferromagnets (AFM) is critical for AFM spintronics. However, electrical pulse-induced Néel vector reorientation in AFM insulators, while predicted to occur at much faster timescales than ferromagnetic switching, has only been demonstrated in the quasi-DC regime. Here we report reliable current-induced AFM switching in Pt/α-Fe2O3 bilayers using electrical pulses with various durations spanning three orders of magnitude down to 0.3 ns. Together with COMSOL simulations of temperature distributions in our samples for various pulse widths, our results suggest that thermally assisted spin-orbit torque likely play an important role for sub-ns pulses. This work demonstrates the viability of electrical switching of AFM spins using sub-ns pulses.

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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074401– Published 1 July, 2026
  • Received 3 November 2022
  • Revised 7 April 2026
  • Accepted 17 June 2026
Article part of CHORUS
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