Symmetry-dependent field-free switching of perpendicular magnetization

Liang Liu (1) , Chenghang Zhou (1) , Xinyu Shu (1) , Changjian Li (1) , Tieyang Zhao (1) , Weinan Lin (1) , Jinyu Deng (1) , Qidong Xie (1) , Shaohai Chen (1) , Jing Zhou (1) , Rui Guo (1) , Han Wang (1) , Jihang Yu (1) , Shu Shi (1) , Ping Yang (1) , Stephen Pennycook (1) , Aurelien Manchon (2, 3) , Jingsheng Chen (1)

1 NUS - National University of Singapore
2 KAUST - Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering (KAUST)
3 CINaM - Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille

Modern magnetic-memory technology requires all-electric control of perpendicular magnetization with low energy consumption. While spin-orbit torque (SOT) in heavy metal/ferromagnet (HM/FM) heterostructures 1-5 holds promise for applications in magnetic random access memory, till today, it is limited to the in-plane direction. Such in-plane torque can switch perpendicular magnetization only deterministically with the help of additional symmetry breaking, e.g., through the application of an external magnetic field 2,4 , an interlayer coupling 6-9 or an asymmetric design 10-14. Instead, an outof-plane spin-orbit torque 15 could directly switch perpendicular magnetization.

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Systèmes mésoscopiques et effet Hall quantique [cond-mat.mes-hall]

Liang Liu, Chenghang Zhou, Xinyu Shu, Changjian Li, Tieyang Zhao, et al.. Symmetry-dependent field-free switching of perpendicular magnetization. Nature Nanotechnology, 2021, ⟨10.1038/s41565-020-00826-8⟩. ⟨hal-03036308⟩