Polarization-selective spin wave driven domain-wall motion in antiferromagnets

The control of magnetic domain walls is essential for magnetic-based memory and logic applications. As an elementary excitation of magnetic order, a spin wave is capable of moving magnetic domain walls just like a conducting electric current. Ferromagnetic spin waves can only be right-circularly polarized. In contrast, antiferromagnetic spin waves have full polarization degrees of freedom, including both left- and right-circular polarizations, as well as all possible linear or elliptical ones. Here we demonstrate that, due to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, the spin wave driven domain-wall motion in antiferromagnets strongly depends on the linear polarization direction of the injected spin waves. Steering domain-wall motion by simply tuning the polarization of spin waves offers new design principles for domain-wall based information processing devices.