Electric induced magnetization switching in all oxide structure and single metallic layer

Abstract

Electrical manipulation of magnetization is essential for the integration of magnetic functionalities such as magnetic memories and magnetic logic devices into electronic circuits. The current induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) in heavy metal/ferromagnet (HM/FM) bilayers via the spin Hall effect and/or the Rashba effect provides an efficient way to switch the magnetization direction. In the meantime, current induced SOT has been used to switch a single magnetic layer such as a ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga, Mn)As6 and antiferromagnetic metal CuMnAs with broken global/local inversion symmetry. Here we demonstrate the electrical switching of a perpendicular magnetized single ferromagnetic layer, L1 0 -ordered FePt. Different from previously reported SOTs which either decreases with or does not change with the film thickness, the SOT in FePt increases with the film thickness. The SOT in L1 0 FePt single layer is attributed to the composition gradient in the atomically layered structure along the film normal direction which causes a new type of bulk-like inversion symmetry breaking. A linear correlation between the SOT and the composition gradient is observed.[1]