Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 25, 2026

Visualizing Uniaxial-strain Manipulation of Antiferromagnetic Domains in Fe1+YTe Using a Spin-polarized Scanning Tunneling Microscope
Published on: March 24, 2019
Bistability in atomic-scale antiferromagnets
Sebastian Loth1, Susanne Baumann, Christopher P Lutz
1IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120, USA. sebastian.loth@mpsd.cfel.de
Abstract:
Control of magnetism on the atomic scale is becoming essential as data storage devices are miniaturized. We show that antiferromagnetic nanostructures, composed of just a few Fe atoms on a surface, exhibit two magnetic states, the Néel states, that are stable for hours at low temperature. For the smallest structures, we observed transitions between Néel states due to quantum tunneling of magnetization. We sensed the magnetic states of the designed structures using spin-polarized tunneling and switched between them electrically with nanosecond speed. Tailoring the properties of neighboring antiferromagnetic nanostructures enables a low-temperature demonstration of dense nonvolatile storage of information.
Related Concept Videos
Ferromagnetism
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Relaxation Processes
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Spin State Population Distribution
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Spin State Overview
Atomic Nuclei: Magnetic Resonance
Paramagnetism

