Spin transfer torques allow the electrical manipulation of the magnetization at room temperature, which is desirable in spintronic devices such as spin transfer torque memories. When combined with spin-orbit coupling, they give rise to spin-orbit torques which are a more powerful tool for magnetization control and can enrich device functionalities. The engineering of spin-orbit torques, based mostly on the spin Hall effect, is being intensely pursued. Here we report that the oxidation of spin-orbit torque devices triggers a new mechanism of spin-orbit torque, which is about two times stronger than that based on the spin Hall effect. We thus introduce a way to engineer spin-orbit torques via oxygen manipulation. Combined with electrical gating of the oxygen level, our findings may also pave the way towards reconfigurable logic devices.
@article{arxiv.1511.08868,
title = {Spin-orbit torque engineering via oxygen manipulation},
author = {Xuepeng Qiu and Kulothungasagaran Narayanapillai and Yang Wu and Praveen Deorani and Dong-Hyuk Yang and Woo-Suk Noh and Jae-Hoon Park and Kyung-Jin Lee and Hyun-Woo Lee and Hyunsoo Yang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.08868},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1311.3032