Deterministic switching of antiferromagnetic spin textures by chaotic magnons

Abstract Topological spin textures such as magnetic skyrmions 1-7 are promising candidates as information carriers for next-generation memory-in-logic devices 8 . Antiferromagnetic spin textures 9-12 , compared to their ferromagnetic counterparts, innately possess high stability with respect to external disturbance 13,14 and high-frequency dynamics 15-18 compatible with ultrafast information processing. However, deterministic creation and reconfigurable switching of different antiferromagnetic spin textures have not been realized so far. Here, we demonstrate room-temperature deterministic switching between antiferromagnetic domain walls, Bloch bimerons and Néel bimerons in single-crystal hematite (α-Fe 2 O 3 ) 12,19-22 . All three topological states are found to be remarkably stable and fully controllable, as confirmed by 1’000 switching cycles. Their dynamics exhibit distinct resonance frequencies and magnetic field dependences. The switching from domain walls to Bloch bimerons requires only one microwave pulse (100 ns) with ultralow energy consumption (1 nJ). When the dynamic excitation wavevector approaches that of static spin textures, and the power lies beyond a threshold, chaotic magnons 23-26 are excited, which subsequently nucleate bimerons and finally lead to a deterministic switching, as unveiled by micromagnetic simulations. The progressive switching from Bloch-type to Néel-type bimerons imitates the weighted sum operation in neuromorphic computing 27,28 . Thus, our work points to the possibility of using spin textures in antiferromagnets for information processing.