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Field-free full switching of chiral antiferromagnetic order

Article

Published: 25 February 2026

Field-free full switching of chiral antiferromagnetic order

Zhiyuan Zhou1,
Yanzhang Cao1,
Zhuorui Pan1,
Yingying Zhang1,
Shixuan Liang1,
Feng Pan

orcid.org/0000-0002-3788-78941 &

…
Cheng Song

orcid.org/0000-0002-7651-90311

Nature

(2026)Cite this article

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Subjects

Magnetic properties and materials
Spintronics

Abstract

Chiral antiferromagnets1,2 host octupole order3,4 and combine the advantages of antiferromagnets and ferromagnets. Despite the development of numerous switching strategies5,6,7,8,9, the field-free full switching remains unknown, posing an important obstacle to their practical application in memory technology. Here we prepared a homo-junction constituted of Mn3Sn(0001) bottom layer and polycrystalline Mn3Sn top layer. The tilted Kagomé geometry in polycrystalline Mn3Sn divides the out-of-plane spin polarization from Mn3Sn(0001) layer10,11 into the out-of-Kagomé-plane and in-Kagomé-plane components, generating the symmetric (antiferromagnet-type) and asymmetric (ferromagnet-type) driving forces, respectively. The former accelerates octupole rotation, whereas the latter determines switching chirality. Field-free full switching is realized in the unconventional protocol that integrates the advantages of both antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic switching. It goes beyond the conventional full-switching framework requiring perpendicular uniaxial anisotropy7,12. An unprecedented switching efficiency is achieved, with both current density and power consumption an order of magnitude lower than in previous configurations, by virtue of the highly efficient driving forces due to spin-torque characteristics of octupole order and the ultralow energy barrier arising from easy-plane anisotropy, overcoming their trade-off in conventional protocols. The zero-field switching also shows the advantages of octupole-programmable chirality and robustness to external magnetic field.

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Fig. 1: Categorization of the electrical switching strategies for chiral antiferromagnetic order.

Fig. 2: Mn3Sn homo-junction.

Fig. 3: Octupole control of field-free switching and the robustness against field perturbation.

Fig. 4: Spin-torque characteristics of spin sublattices and octupole order, and categorization of driving forces and energy barriers.

Field-free full switching of chiral antiferromagnetic order