  Antiferromagnetic materials hold promising prospects in novel types of
spintronics applications. Assessing the stability of antiferromagnetic
nanostructures against thermal excitations is a crucial aspect of designing
devices with a high information density. Here we use theoretical calculations
and numerical simulations to determine the mean switching time of
antiferromagnetic nanoparticles in the superparamagnetic limit. It is
demonstrated that the thermal stability is drastically reduced compared to
ferromagnetic particles in the limit of low Gilbert damping, attributed to the
exchange enhancement of the attempt frequencies. It is discussed how the system
parameters have to be engineered in order to optimize the switching rates in
antiferromagnetic nanoparticles.
