Spatio-temporal dynamics of voltage-induced resistance transition in the double-exchange model

Abstract

We present multi-scale dynamical simulations of voltage-induced insulator-to-metal transition in the double exchange model, a canonical example of itinerant magnet and correlated electron systems. By combining nonequilibrium Green's function method with large-scale Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert dynamics, we show that the transition from an antiferromagnetic insulator to the low-resistance state is initiated by the nucleation of a thin ferromagnetic conducting layer at the anode. The metal-insulator interface separating the two phases is then driven toward the opposite electrode by the voltage stress, giving rise to a growing metallic region. We further show that the initial transformation kinetics is well described by the Kolmogorov-Avrami-Ishibashi model with an effective spatial-dimension that depends on the applied voltage. Implications of our findings for the resistive switching in colossal magnetoresistant materials are also discussed.