Ultrafast magnetization switching by spin-orbit torques

By Kevin Garello, C. Avci, I. Miron, M. Baumgartner, Abhijit Ghosh, S. Auffret, Olivier Boulle, Gilles Gaudin, Pietro Gambardella. 2013

473 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Spin-orbit torques induced by spin Hall and interfacial effects in heavy metal/ferromagnetic bilayers allow for a switching geometry based on in-plane current injection. Using this geometry, we demonstrate deterministic magnetization reversal by current pulses ranging from 180 ps to ms in Pt/Co/AlOx dots with lateral dimensions of 90 nm. We characterize the switching probability and critical current Ic as a function of pulse length, amplitude, and external field. Our data evidence two distinct regimes: a short-time intrinsic regime, where Ic scales linearly with the inverse of the pulse length, and a long-time thermally assisted regime, where Ic varies weakly. Both regimes are consistent with magnetization reversal proceeding by nucleation and fast propagation of domains. We find that Ic is a factor 3–4 smaller compared to a single domain model and that the incubation time is negligibly small, which is a hallmark feature of spin-orbit torques.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/82a5ffc7a8c71a6343a56049ab333c32321fb1a3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Pietro Gambardella
2. T. Jungwirth
3. J. Sinova
4. A. Manchon
5. I. Miron
6. Kevin Garello
7. A. Thiaville
8. J. Železný

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. J. Sinova
2. A. Manchon
3. T. Jungwirth
4. A. Thiaville
5. Kevin Garello
6. Pietro Gambardella
7. I. Miron
8. J. Železný

In Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

1. Pietro Gambardella
2. J. Sinova
3. A. Thiaville
4. I. Miron
5. T. Jungwirth

Citations in the corpus

• Current-induced spin-orbit torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems (2018, background): “Therefore, the in-plane writing current geometry can make the SOT more efficient and faster than STT (Aradhya et al., 2016; Baumgartner et al., 2017; Fukami and Ohno, 2017; Garello et al., 2014; Prenat et al., 2016).”
• Antiferromagnetic spintronics (2016, unknown): “This reversal is 2 orders of magnitude faster than the one obtained from ferromagnets using spin-orbit torques (Garello et al., 2014), establishing the advantage of antiferromagnets for ultrafast operation.”
• Ultra-Fast Perpendicular Spin–Orbit Torque MRAM (2015, background): “” the uniaxial anisotropy axis [12], [32].”