Zero-field spin-orbit-torque switching driven by magnetic spin Hall effect
Abstract
Spin Hall effect plays an essential role in generating spin current from the injected charge current, following the Dyakonov-Perel rule that the directions of charge flow, spin flow and spin polarization are mutually perpendicular to each other. Recently, its generalization from an antiferromagnet, so-called magnetic spin Hall effect, has been studied and verified by measuring anomalous spin accumulations. Here, we investigate the magnetic spin Hall effect in bilayer materials made of a heavy metal and an antiferromagnet. The spin current generated by the magnetic spin Hall effect accomplishes spin-orbit-torque switching for ferromagnetic magnetization and exchange bias concurrently without any external magnetic field. The switching mechanism crucially relies on the non-collinear spin texture in the antiferromagnet, capable of generating symmetry-breaking components in the spin-current tensor so that the external magnetic field is no longer necessary. The zero-field concurrent switching of magnetization and exchange bias is a significant technological breakthrough. Furthermore, our findings pave the way to explore the magnetic spin Hall effects in various spin textures through spin-orbit-torque switching.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1911.01785,
title = {Zero-field spin-orbit-torque switching driven by magnetic spin Hall effect},
author = {Po-Hung Lin and Po-Wei Lee and Yu-Hsuan Lin and Bo-Yuan Yang and Vinod Kumar and Hsiu-Hau Lin and Chih-Huang Lai},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.01785},
year = {2019}
}