Spintronics relies on the transport of spins, the intrinsic angular momentum of electrons, as an alternative to the transport of electron charge as in conventional electronics. The long-term goal of spintronics research is to develop spin-based, low-dissipation computing-technology devices. Recently, long-distance transport of a spin current was demonstrated across ferromagnetic insulators. However, antiferromagnetically ordered materials, the most common class of magnetic materials, have several crucial advantages over ferromagnetic systems for spintronics applications: antiferromagnets have no net magnetic moment, making them stable and impervious to external fields, and can be operated at terahertz-scale frequencies. Although the properties of antiferromagnets are desirable for spin transport, indirect observations of such transport indicate that spin transmission through antiferromagnets is limited to only a few nanometres. Here we demonstrate long-distance propagation of spin currents through a single crystal of the antiferromagnetic insulator haematite (α-FeO), the most common antiferromagnetic iron oxide, by exploiting the spin Hall effect for spin injection. We control the flow of spin current across a haematite-platinum interface-at which spins accumulate, generating the spin current-by tuning the antiferromagnetic resonance frequency using an external magnetic field. We find that this simple antiferromagnetic insulator conveys spin information parallel to the antiferromagnetic Néel order over distances of more than tens of micrometres. This mechanism transports spins as efficiently as the most promising complex ferromagnets. Our results pave the way to electrically tunable, ultrafast, low-power, antiferromagnetic-insulator-based spin-logic devices that operate without magnetic fields at room temperature.

We probe the current-induced magnetic switching of insulating antiferromagnet/heavy metals systems, by electrical spin Hall magnetoresistance measurements and direct imaging, identifying a reversal occurring by domain wall (DW) motion. We observe switching of more than one third of the antiferromagnetic domains by the application of current pulses. Our data reveal two different magnetic switching mechanisms leading together to an efficient switching, namely the spin-current induced effective magnetic anisotropy variation and the action of the spin torque on the DWs. 2 MANUSCRIPTElectrical read-out and writing of the antiferromagnetic state is crucial to exploit the properties of antiferromagnets in future spintronic devices. Antiferromagnetic materials have the potential for ultrafast operation [1], with spin dynamics in the terahertz range, high packing density, due to the absence of stray magnetic fields, and an insensitivity to magnetic fields [2,3]. Furthermore, low-power operation is possible in antiferromagnetic insulators (AFM-Is) due to long spin diffusion lengths [4] and the theoretical prediction of superfluid spin transport [5].Recently, the electrical reading of the Néel order (n) orientation in AFM-Is was demonstrated via spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) [6-10], a magnetoresistive effect depending on the mutual orientation of the magnetic order and an interfacial spin accumulation μs. However, one of the main challenges faced by AFM spintronics is the reliable electrical writing of the orientation of n. One possible approach exploits staggered Néel spin orbit torques [11], creating an effective field of opposite sign on each magnetic sublattice. However, these torques rely on special material requirements, which has limited their application to the conducting AFMs CuMnAs and Mn2Au [12][13][14][15][16]. Another approach would be to use the non-staggered, antidamping-like torque exerted by a spin accumulation at the interface of a heavy metal and an AFM-I. A charge current in the heavy metal layer can generate a transverse spin current via the spin Hall effect, creating antidamping-like torques in the antiferromagnet.The possibility of such switching was demonstrated in NiO(001)/Pt and Pt/NiO(111)/Pt [17,18], but the mechanisms are still debated. One of the possible mechanisms relies on spin-current induced domain wall (DW) motion [19], predicting that DWs with opposite chirality are driven in opposite directions, thus excluding the electrical signature of the switching when DWs with opposite chirality are equally probable. A second mechanism [18], based on the coherent rotation of n, predicts a current threshold ten times larger than that found experimentally. A third mechanism, based on field-like torques acting on uncompensated interfacial spins, requires perfectly flat interfaces [17]. Currently, none of these provides a consistent explanation of the effect.In this work we realize reliable current-induced switching in epitaxial antiferromagnetic NiO/Pt bilayers. We show that the magnetic state of ...

We report the observation of the three-dimensional angular dependence of the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) in a bilayer of the epitaxial antiferromagnetic insulator NiO(001) and the heavy metal Pt, without any ferromagnetic element. The detected angular-dependent longitudinal and transverse magnetoresistances are measured by rotating the sample in magnetic fields up to 11 T, along three orthogonal planes (xy-, yz-and xz-rotation planes, where the z-axis is orthogonal to the sample plane). The total magnetoresistance has contributions arising from both the SMR and ordinary magnetoresistance. The onset of the SMR signal occurs between 1 and 3 T and no saturation is visible up to 11 T. The three-dimensional angular dependence of the SMR can be explained by a model considering the reversible field-induced redistribution of magnetostrictive antiferromagnetic S-and T-domains in the NiO(001), stemming from the competition between the Zeeman energy and the elastic clamping effect of the non-magnetic MgO substrate. From the observed SMR ratio, we estimate the spin mixing conductance at the NiO/Pt interface to be greater than 2x10 14 Ω -1 m -2 . Our results demonstrate