In an antiferromagnet (AF) with uniaxial anisotropy, spin-up and spin-down magnons coexist and form an intrinsic degree of freedom resembling electrons. When polarized by an adjacent ferromagnet (F), a magnonic pure spin current can be thermally generated in an AF. We explore thermal magnon transport in an insulating F/AF/F trilayer where propagating magnons inside the AF spacer can transfer angular momenta between the two Fs. We find that a sufficiently large temperature gradient can switch the downstream F via magnonic spin-transfer torque if it is initially antiparallel with the upstream F. A reciprocal switching is achievable by reversing the temperature gradient. Using typical material parameters, we estimate the threshold to be less than 1 K/nm at room temperature, which can be reduced by raising temperature and enhancing the interfacial exchange coupling.
@article{arxiv.1802.07709,
title = {Magnonic Spin-Transfer Torque in Ferromagnet/Antiferromagnet/Ferromagnet Trilayer},
author = {Ran Cheng and Di Xiao and Jian-Gang Zhu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.07709},
year = {2018}
}