Spin-orbit torque magnetization switching of a three-terminal perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction

By M. Cubukcu, Olivier Boulle, M. Drouard, Kevin Garello, C. Avci, I. Miron, J. Langer, B. Ocker, Pietro Gambardella, Gilles Gaudin. 2013

330 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report on the current-induced magnetization switching of a three-terminal perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction by spin-orbit torque and its read-out using the tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect. The device is composed of a perpendicular Ta/FeCoB/MgO/FeCoB stack on top of a Ta current line. The magnetization of the bottom FeCoB layer can be switched reproducibly by the injection of current pulses with density 5 × 1011 A/m2 in the Ta layer in the presence of an in-plane bias magnetic field, leading to the full-scale change of the TMR signal. Our work demonstrates the proof of concept of a perpendicular spin-orbit torque magnetic memory cell.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d7fba418078cae723331498e13fe816dae5e1c48

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Citations in the corpus

Antiferromagnetic spintronics (2016, background): “…anisotropy require additional symmetry breaking, for example, by applying an in-plane magnetic field (along the current flow direction) (Cubukcu et al., 2014) or by introducing geometric asymmetries (Yu et al., 2014; Safeer et al., 2015), for spin Hall torques to switch their…”
Ultra-Fast Perpendicular Spin–Orbit Torque MRAM (2015, methodology): “Functional three-terminal single cells with lateral dimensions down to 150 nm diameter on top of a 330 nm wide Ta track were fabricated as described in [26].”
New perspectives for Rashba spin-orbit coupling. (2015, methodology): “ization [61], [62], [63]. This so-called SO torque can be used to excite or reverse the magnetization direction and is therefore potentially useful for applications such as magnetic memories or logic [64]. This torque was first observed in (Ga,Mn)As [65] where straining the zinc-blende structure is ”
Giant Spin Hall Effect and Switching Induced by Spin-Transfer Torque in a W / Co 40 Fe 40 B 20 / MgO Structure with Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy (2015, background): “[17] M.”
Current-induced spin-orbit torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems (2018, background): “MTJs with in-plane (Liu et al., 2012b; Pai et al., 2012; Yamanouchi et al., 2013) and perpendicular (Cubukcu et al., 2014) magnetization provide the first demonstration of three-terminal devices in which the write operation is performed by SOTs (Fig.”
Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at transition metal/oxide interfaces and applications (2017, methodology): “From Cubukcu et al., 2014.”