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  • Open Access

Chirality and polarization of inertial antiferromagnetic resonances driven by spin-orbit torques

Peng-Bin He*

Ri-Xing Wang

Zai-Dong Li

Mikhail Cherkasskii†

  • Tianjin Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Intelligent Photonics, School of Science, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China and School of Mathematics and Physics, Xinjiang Hetian College, Hetian 848000, China

  • *Contact author: hepengbin@hnu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: macherkasskii@hotmail.com
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Phys. Rev. B 112, 224423 – Published 11 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1cjr-7cgl

Abstract

It is widely accepted that the handedness of a resonant mode is an intrinsic property. We show that, by tailoring the polarization and handedness of alternating spin-orbit torques used as the driving force, the polarization state and handedness of inertial resonant modes in an antiferromagnet (AFM) can be actively controlled. In contrast with ferromagnets, whose resonant-mode polarization is essentially fixed, AFM inertial modes can continuously evolve from elliptic through circular to linear polarization as the driving polarization is varied. We further identify an inertia-dependent critical degree of driving polarization at which the mode becomes linearly polarized while its handedness reverses.

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Phys. Rev. B 112, 224423– Published 11 December, 2025
  • Received 15 July 2025
  • Revised 19 November 2025
  • Accepted 23 November 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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