Abstract
The fresh prospect of the active use of antiferromagnetic materials in spintronics has led to a turbulent development in the understanding of this material group. It was originally propelled by the transfer of novel spintronic methods of manipulation and detection of the magnetic state and soon was followed by discoveries of effects unique to antiferromagnets. A remarkable example of these unexpected discoveries is the experimental observation of the presence of atomically sharp domain walls in an antiferromagnet and a new type of magnetic switching based on quenching of the high resistive nano-fragmented magnetic state induced by the application of short electrical or laser pulses in devices fabricated from epitaxial films of antiferromagnetic CuMnAs. The objective of this project is the extension of experimental evidence of these novel effects from a single material into a set of materials and the development of transmission electron microscopy methods allowing for the visualization magnetic order and spin textures in antiferromagnets with atomic resolution.