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Chiral spintronics

Nature Reviews Physics volume 3, pages 328–343 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

As spins move through a chiral electric field, the resulting spin current can acquire chirality through a spin–orbit interaction. Such spin currents are highly useful in creating spin–orbit torques that can be used to manipulate chiral topological magnetic excitations, for example, chiral magnetic domain walls or skyrmions. When the chiral domain walls form composite domain walls, via an antiferromagnetic exchange coupling, novel phenomena, including an exchange coupling torque and domain wall drag, are observed. Here, we review recent progress in the generation and functionalities of spin currents derived from or acting on chiral structures. By bringing together advances in chiral molecules, chiral magnetic structures and chiral topological matter, we provide an outlook towards potential applications.

Key points

  • When a spin travels through a chiral structure in which the reflection or inversion symmetry is broken, the moving spin can be polarized, thereby giving rise to spin currents. The key ingredient to produce such spin currents is spin–orbit interaction.

  • The spin currents are central to the chiral spintronics. The chiral structures that generate the spin currents can be found not only in a real space but in a reciprocal space.

  • The exemplary chiral structures in the real space are chiral molecules, chiral magnetic domain walls and chiral skyrmions, while what can be found in the reciprocal space are chiral topological materials.

  • Chiral spintronics deals with not only the generation of the spin currents but the acting of spin currents on chiral structures, such as chiral spin–orbit torque.

  • The spin currents from chiral structures such as chiral molecules and chiral topological materials can often be significantly larger than the achiral counterparts. Reversely, the spin currents acting on chiral structures, such as chiral spin–orbit torque, is much more efficient than achiral spin transfer torque.

  • Chiral spintronics based on chiral magnetic structures are particularly useful for the potential development of devices that have better performances and new functionalities.

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Fig. 1: Chiral-molecule-based spintronics.
Fig. 2: Chiral magnetic domain wall motion by chiral spin–orbit torques.
Fig. 3: Chiral exchange drag and chirality oscillation.
Fig. 4: Magnetotransport properties and chiral SOT-induced switching in chiral non-collinear antiferromagnets Mn3X.
Fig. 5: Spin currents in chiral topological quantum materials, and spin–orbit torque from topological insulators and Weyl semimetals.

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Acknowledgements

S.S.P.P. acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 670166) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 766566. R.N. and Y.P. acknowledges the partial support from US Department of Energy grant no. ER46430 and from the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IBM Research – Almaden, San Jose, CA, USA

    See-Hun Yang

  2. Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Ron Naaman

  3. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Yossi Paltiel

  4. Max Planck Institute, Halle, Germany

    Stuart S. P. Parkin

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S.-H.Y. and S.S.P.P. conceived and proposed this Review. The authors contributed to all aspects of the article.

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Yang, SH., Naaman, R., Paltiel, Y. et al. Chiral spintronics. Nat Rev Phys 3, 328–343 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00302-9

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