Phys.org May 15, 2024
Nickel monosilicide (NiSi) is widely used to connect transistors in semiconductor circuits. Earlier theoretical calculations had incorrectly predicted that NiSi was not magnetic. As a result, researchers had never fully explored magnetism in NiSi. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Missouri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Austria, Poland) showed that NiSi metal could provide suitable new platform. The study showed high-temperature antiferromagnetism in single-crystal NiSi with Néel temperature. Antiferromagnetic order in NiSi was accompanied by non-centrosymmetric magnetic character with small ferromagnetic component in the a–c plane. It was found that NiSi manifests distinct magnetic and electronic hysteresis responses to field applications due to the disparity in two moment directions. While magnetic hysteresis was characterized by one-step switching between ferromagnetic states of uncompensated moment, electronic behavior was ascribed to metamagnetic switching phenomena between non-collinear spin configurations. The switching behaviors persist to high temperature. According to the researchers the properties underscore the importance of NiSi in the pursuit of antiferromagnetic spintronics… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Depiction of the newly discovered magnetic order of nickel spins… Credit: Jill Hemman, Oak Ridge National Laboratory