Efficient and controllable magnetization switching induced by intermixing-enhanced bulk spin–orbit torque in ferromagnetic multilayers

Abstract

Spin–orbit torque induced ferromagnetic magnetization switching brought by injecting a charge current into strong spin–orbit-coupling materials is an energy-efficient writing method in emerging magnetic memories and spin logic devices. However, because of the short spin coherence length in ferromagnetic layers, the interfacial effective spin–orbit torque typically leads to high critical current density for switching thick ferromagnet, which goes against low-power and high-density requirements. Here, we experimentally demonstrate efficient bulk spin–orbit torque-driven perpendicular magnetization switching under relatively low critical current density in thick Pt/Co multilayers with gradient-induced symmetry breaking. Through tuning the thickness gradient of Pt, the spin–orbit torque efficiency and switching chirality can be highly controlled, which also indicates that net spin current arises from gradient. Meanwhile, x-ray absorption spectroscopy results reveal that the atomic intermixing can significantly enhance the spin–orbit torque efficiency through improving the strength of spin–orbit-coupling of Pt. We also establish a micromagnetic model by taking both gradient-induced and intermixing-enhanced spin–orbit torque into account to well describe the experimental observations. This work would blaze a promising avenue to develop novel spin–orbit torque devices for high-performance spintronic memory and computation systems.