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Antiferromagnetic Barkhausen noise induced by weak random-field disorder

Bosiljka Tadić

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 104201 – Published 9 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ym7r-kzdl

Abstract

This study numerically investigates magnetization reversal processes driven by an external magnetic field in three-dimensional antiferromagnetic spin models with weak random-field disorder. Considering an extremely weak disorder and low temperature, we observe a stepwise hysteresis loop and the appearance of short magnetization bursts of a characteristic triangular shape; the number of bursts increases with disorder, indicative of Barkhausen-type noise. These phenomena are attributed to the simultaneous reversal at a given external field of segments composed of spins with identical neighborhoods. A local random field orients one or more spin neighbors, resulting in small, ferromagneticlike clusters distributed throughout the system. As disorder increases, these clusters may merge to form a labyrinthine structure within the antiferromagnetic background, facilitating brief avalanche propagation. The results demonstrate that, compared with familiar random-field ferromagnets, the observed antiferromagnetic Barkhausen noise and the related avalanche sequence have a profoundly different structure, organized into peaks associated with the transition between magnetization plateaus. They exhibit prominent cyclical trends and disorder-dependent multifractal fluctuations, with the singularity spectrum quantifying the degree of disorder. The activity avalanches exhibit scale invariance resembling that recently found in experiments with disordered ferrimagnets and martensites, as well as in quantum Barkhausen noise, which are associated with active geometric regions rather than individual-spin dynamics. The observed scaling behavior is interpreted in terms of self-organized critical dynamics.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 104201– Published 9 March, 2026
  • Received 18 November 2025
  • Revised 21 January 2026
  • Accepted 18 February 2026
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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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