Metallic antiferromagnets with broken inversion symmetry on the two sublattices, strong spin-orbit coupling and high N\'{e}el temperatures offer new opportunities for applications in spintronics. Especially Mn2Au, with high N\'{e}el temperature and conductivity, is particularly interesting for real-world applications. Here, manipulation of the orientation of the staggered magnetization,\textit{\ i.e.} the N\'{e}el vector, by current pulses has been recently demonstrated, with the read-out limited to studies of anisotropic magnetoresistance or X-ray magnetic linear dichroism. Here, we report on the in-plane reflectivity anisotropy of Mn2Au (001) films, which were N\'{e}el vector aligned in pulsed magnetic fields. In the near-infrared, the anisotropy is ≈ 0.6\%, with higher reflectivity for the light polarized along the N\'{e}el vector. The observed magnetic linear dichroism is about four times larger than the anisotropic magnetoresistance. This suggests the dichroism in Mn2Au is a result of the strong spin-orbit interactions giving rise to anisotropy of interband optical transitions, in-line with recent studies of electronic band-structure. The considerable magnetic linear dichroism in the near-infrared could be used for ultrafast optical read-out of the N\'{e}el vector in Mn2Au.
@article{arxiv.2106.02729,
title = {Optical read-out of the N\'eel vector in metallic antiferromagnet Mn$_{2}$Au},
author = {Vladimir Grigorev and Mariia Filianina and Stanislav Yu. Bodnar and Sergei Sobolev and Nilabha Bhattacharjee and Satya Bommanaboyena and Yaryna Lytvynenko and Yurii Skourski and Dirk Fuchs and Mathias Kläui and Martin Jourdan and Jure Demsar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.02729},
year = {2022}
}