Spintronics in antiferromagnets.

Magnetic domains and the walls between are the subject of great interest because of the role they play in determining the electrical properties of ferromagnetic materials and as a means of manipulating electron spin in spintronic devices. However, much less attention has been paid to these effects in antiferromagnets, primarily because there is less awareness of their existence in antiferromagnets, and in addition they are hard to probe since they exhibit no net magnetic moment. In this paper, we discuss the electrical properties of chromium, which is the only elemental antiferromagnet and how they depend on the subtle arrangement of the antiferromagnetically ordered spins.

Self-assembly and ripening of polymeric silver-alkanethiolate crystals on inert surfaces.

We characterize and compare the reaction of alkanethiol with Ag continuous planar thin films and Ag islands on inert substrates. Ag islands generate a significantly larger (3-fold) amount of alkanethiolate than continuous Ag films at comparable conditions. The reaction with planar Ag thin films produces alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), whereas the reaction with Ag islands yields two dissimilar products depending on the size of the islands.

Electrical effects of spin density wave quantization and magnetic domain walls in chromium.

The role of magnetic domains (and the walls between domains) in determining the electrical properties of ferromagnetic materials has been investigated in great detail for many years, not least because control over domains offers a means of manipulating electron spin to control charge transport in 'spintronic' devices. In contrast, much less attention has been paid to the effects of domains and domain walls on the electrical properties of antiferromagnets: antiferromagnetic domains show no net external magnetic moment, and so are difficult to manipulate or probe. Here we describe electrical measurements on chromium--a simple metal and quintessential spin density wave antiferromagnet--that show behaviour directly related to spin density wave formation and the presence of antiferromagnetic domains.