Ferromagnets are known to support spin-polarized currents that control various spin-dependent transport phenomena useful for spintronics. On the contrary, fully compensated antiferromagnets are expected to support only globally spin-neutral currents. Here, we demonstrate that these globally spin-neutral currents can represent the N\'eel spin currents, i.e. staggered spin currents flowing through different magnetic sublattices. The N\'eel spin currents emerge in antiferromagnets with strong intra-sublattice coupling (hopping) and drive the spin-dependent transport phenomena such as tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) and spin-transfer torque (STT) in antiferromagnetic tunnel junctions (AFMTJs). Using RuO2 and Fe4GeTe2 as representative antiferromagnets, we predict that the N\'eel spin currents with a strong staggered spin-polarization produce a sizable field-like STT capable of the deterministic switching of the N\'eel vector in the associated AFMTJs. Our work uncovers the previously unexplored potential of fully compensated antiferromagnets and paves a new route to realize the efficient writing and reading of information for antiferromagnetic spintronics.
@article{arxiv.2212.02367,
title = {N\'eel Spin Currents in Antiferromagnets},
author = {Ding-Fu Shao and Yuan-Yuan Jiang and Jun Ding and Shu-Hui Zhang and Zi-An Wang and Rui-Chun Xiao and Gautam Gurung and W. J. Lu and Y. P. Sun and Evgeny Y. Tsymbal},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.02367},
year = {2023}
}