A conductive topological insulator with large spin Hall effect for ultralow power spin–orbit torque switching

Abstract

Spin-orbit torque switching using the spin Hall effect in heavy metals and topological insulators has a great potential for ultralow power magnetoresistive random-access memory. To be competitive with conventional spin-transfer torque switching, a pure spin current source with a large spin Hall angle (θSH > 1) and high electrical conductivity (σ > 105 Ω-1 m-1) is required. Here we demonstrate such a pure spin current source: conductive topological insulator BiSb thin films with σ ≈ 2.5 × 105 Ω-1 m-1, θSH ≈ 52 and spin Hall conductivity σSH ≈ 1.3 × 107 [Formula: see text]Ω-1 m-1 at room temperature. We show that BiSb thin films can generate a very large spin-orbit field of 2.3 kOe MA-1 cm2 and a critical switching current density as low as 1.5 MA cm-2 in Bi0.9Sb0.1/MnGa bilayers, which underlines the potential of BiSb for industrial applications.