Despite their great promise for providing a pathway for very efficient and fast manipulation of magnetization, spin‐orbit torque (SOT) operations are currently energy inefficient due to a low damping‐like SOT efficiency per unit current bias, and/or the very high resistivity of the spin Hall materials. This work reports an advantageous spin Hall material, Pd1−
The interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) holds promises for design and control of chiral spin textures in low-dimensional magnets with efficient current-driven dynamics. Recently, an interlayer DMI has been found to exist across magnetic multilayers with a heavy-metal spacer between magnetic layers. This opens the possibility of chirality in these three-dimensional magnetic structures. Here we show the existence of the interlayer DMI in a synthetic antiferromagnetic multilayer with both inversion and in-plane asymmetry. We analyse the interlayer DMI’s effects on the magnetization and the current-induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) switching of magnetization through a combination of experimental and numerical studies. The chiral nature of the interlayer DMI leads to an asymmetric SOT switching of magnetization under an in-plane magnetic field. Our work paves the way for further explorations on controlling chiral magnetizations across magnetic multilayers through SOTs, which can provide a new path in the design of SOT devices.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1936221
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10210095
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Communications Physics
- Volume:
- 4
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2399-3650
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract x Ptx , which combines a low resistivity with a giant spin Hall effect as evidenced with three independent SOT ferromagnetic detectors. The optimal Pd0.25Pt0.75alloy has a giant internal spin Hall ratio of >0.60 (damping‐like SOT efficiency of ≈0.26 for all three ferromagnets) and a low resistivity of ≈57.5 µΩ cm at a 4 nm thickness. Moreover, it is found that the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI), the key ingredient for the manipulation of chiral spin arrangements (e.g., magnetic skyrmions and chiral domain walls), is considerably strong at the Pd1−x Ptx /Fe0.6Co0.2B0.2interface when compared to that at Ta/Fe0.6Co0.2B0.2or W/Fe0.6Co0.2B0.2interfaces and can be tuned by a factor of 5 through control of the interfacial spin‐orbital coupling via the heavy metal composition. This work establishes a very effective spin current generator that combines a notably high energy efficiency with a very strong and tunable DMI for advanced chiral spintronics and spin torque applications. -
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Abstract All-electrical driven magnetization switching attracts much attention in next-generation spintronic memory and logic devices, particularly in magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) based on the spin–orbit torque (SOT), i.e. SOT-MRAM, due to its advantages of low power consumption, fast write/read speed, and improved endurance, etc. For conventional SOT-driven switching of the magnet with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, an external assisted magnetic field is necessary to break the inversion symmetry of the magnet, which not only induces the additional power consumption but also makes the circuit more complicated. Over the last decade, significant effort has been devoted to field-free magnetization manipulation by using SOT. In this review, we introduce the basic concepts of SOT. After that, we mainly focus on several approaches to realize the field-free deterministic SOT switching of the perpendicular magnet. The mechanisms mainly include mirror symmetry breaking, chiral symmetry breaking, exchange bias, and interlayer exchange coupling. Furthermore, we show the recent progress in the study of SOT with unconventional origin and symmetry. The final section is devoted to the industrial-level approach for potential applications of field-free SOT switching in SOT-MRAM technology.more » « less
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