Abstract
Giant spin Hall effect (GSHE) has received significant attention for its potential in future spintronic applications. Spin current via GSHE-based thin films provides an effective and promising means to manipulate magnetization. However, an external in-plane magnetic field is required to consistently switch the perpendicular magnetic moment. We present an approach to realize field-free deterministic perpendicular magnetic switching with a new structure of FM/NM/FM. Our method takes advantage of the large spin Hall angle of transition metal β-W, so that the critical switching current density is only on the order of 106A/cm2 in the absence of magnetic field.
Highlights
In this article, we introduce a method of field-free switching in a structure of FM/NM/FM, where the central NM is a Giant spin Hall effect (GSHE) non-magnetic metallic layer
All the samples were annealed in a high vacuum chamber (~10−6 Torr) at a temperature of ~280 °C for 1 hour with a magnetic field of ~0.42 T applied in the plane of the stacks
We have demonstrated current induced magnetic switching by virtue of GSHE of β-W without the need of an external magnetic field
Summary
We introduce a method of field-free switching in a structure of FM/NM/FM, where the central NM is a GSHE non-magnetic metallic layer. All the samples were annealed in a high vacuum chamber (~10−6 Torr) at a temperature of ~280 °C for 1 hour with a magnetic field of ~0.42 T applied in the plane of the stacks. We measured the resistance of the whole stack to confirm the β-phase of W layer. The spin-up and spin-down states can be inferred from the high and low Hall resistance states, respectively, as shown schematically in the insets of Fig. 1(d). Since the anisotropy field for the thickness (3.6 nm~7.0 nm) and external magnetic biasing field
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