Persistent Large Anisotropic Magnetoresistance and Insulator-to-Metal Transition in Spin-Orbit-Coupled Sr2(Ir1−xGax)O4 for Antiferromagnetic Spintronics

Spintronics based on antiferromagnets (rather than ferromagnets) continues to garner intense interest, as antiferromagnets offer no stray fields and ultrafast spin dynamics. However, there is a significant performance gap between antiferromagnetic (AFM) insulators and metals. This study reports the remarkable electronic properties of a series of AFM doped iridates---findings that close the aforementioned performance gap, and furthermore unveil the physics of the coupling between magnetic and charge degrees of freedom in this family of transition-metal oxides.