We study the current-induced torques in bilayers composed of a light 3d metal, chromium, and a rare-earth ferromagnet with finite orbital moments, terbium, utilizing second-harmonic Hall-response measurements. The dampinglike torque efficiency of chromium is found to be positive and reaches ~3.66 in this system, in sharp contrast to the negative and subtle dampinglike torque efficiency in general Cr/ferromagnet heterostructures with quenched orbital moment. We suggest that the orbital currents generated by the orbital Hall effect in Cr can be injected into Tb with negligible loss at the interface and then efficiently interact with the orbital moments. We term such an exotic effect as the orbit-orbit torque (OOT). Our work implies that orbital currents could be harnessed to manipulate the orbital magnetization of materials, which would advance the development of orbitronics.
@article{arxiv.2602.04151,
title = {Observation of Orbit-Orbit Torques: Highly Efficient Torques on Orbital Moments Induced by Orbital Currents},
author = {Hongyu Chen and Han Yan and Xiaorong Zhou and Xiaoning Wang and Ziang Meng and Li Liu and Guojian Zhao and Zhiyuan Duan and Sixu Jiang and Jingyu Li and Xiaoyang Tan and Peixin Qin and Zhiqi Liu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.04151},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
15 pages, 5 figures, published online at Modern Physics Letters B