The orbital Hall effect, which does not rely on the spin-orbit coupling, has recently emerged as a promising mechanism for electrically manipulating magnetization in thin-film ferromagnets. Despite its potential, direct experimental observation of magnetization switching driven by orbital currents has been challenging, primarily because there is no direct exchange coupling between orbital angular momentum and local spin based magnetic moments. In this study, we present a compensated design to directly probe the contribution of orbital currents in the most promising light metal titanium (Ti), where symmetric layer structures allow zeroing out of the net spin current. By varying the thickness of the Ti layer in Ti(t)/Pt/Co/Pt/Co/Pt multilayers, we demonstrate the ability to control the magnetization switching polarity. We deduce the orbital charge conversion efficiency of the Ti layer to be approximately 0.17. These findings not only confirm the presence of the orbital Hall effect in Ti but also suggest that orbital currents may be promising candidates for developing energy-efficient magnetic devices with enhanced performance and scalability.
@article{arxiv.2504.04399,
title = {Manipulating magnetization by orbital current from a light metal Ti},
author = {Dongxing Zheng and Jingkai Xu and Fatimah Alsayafi and Sachin Krishnia and Dongwook Go and Duc Tran and Tao Yang and Yan Li and Yinchang Ma and Chen Liu and Meng Tang and Aitian Chen and Hanin Algaidi and Hao Wu and Kai Liu and Yuriy Mokrousov and Mathias Kläui and Udo Schwingenschlögl and Xixiang Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.04399},
year = {2025}
}