Electrical 180° switching of Néel vector in spin-splitting antiferromagnet

Antiferromagnetic spintronics have attracted wide attention due to its great potential in constructing ultradense and ultrafast antiferromagnetic memory that suits modern high-performance information technology. The electrical 180 degrees switching of N & eacute;el vector is a long-term goal for developing electrical-controllable antiferromagnetic memory with opposite N & eacute;el vectors as binary "0" and "1." However, the state-of-art antiferromagnetic switching mechanisms have long been limited for 90 degrees or 120 degrees switching of N & eacute;el vector, which unavoidably require multiple writing channels that contradict ultradense integration. Here, we propose a deterministic switching mechanism based on spin-orbit torque with asymmetric energy barrier and experimentally achieve electrical 180 degrees switching of spin-splitting antiferromagnet Mn5Si3. Such a 180 degrees switching is read out by the N & eacute;el vector-induced anomalous Hall effect. On the basis of our writing and readout methods, we fabricate an antiferromagnet device with electrical-controllable high- and low-resistance states that accomplishes robust write and read cycles. Besides fundamental advance, our work promotes practical spin-splitting antiferromagnetic devices based on spin-splitting antiferromagnet.