Effect of heavy metal layer thickness on spin-orbit torque and current-induced switching in Hf|CoFeB|MgO structures
[1];
[3];
- Cukurova Univ., Adana (Turkey); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- Adana Science and Technology Univ. (Turkey)
- Cukurova Univ., Adana (Turkey)
We observe the heavy metal layer thickness dependence of the current-induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) in perpendicularly magnetized Hf broken vertical bar CoFeB broken vertical bar MgO multilayer structures. The damping-like (DL) current-induced SOT is determined by vector anomalous Hall effect measurements. A non-monotonic behavior in the DL-SOT is found as a function of the thickness of the heavy-metal layer. The sign of the DL-SOT changes with increasing the thickness of the Hf layer in the trilayer structure. As a result, in the current-driven magnetization switching, the preferred direction of switching for a given current direction changes when the Hf thickness is increased above similar to 7 nm. Although there might be a couple of reasons for this unexpected behavior in DL-SOT, such as the roughness in the interfaces and/or impurity based electric potential in the heavy metal, one can deduce a roughness dependence sign reversal in DL-SOT in our trilayer structure.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science - Office of Basic Energy Sciences - Materials Sciences and Engineering Division; National Science Foundation (NSF); U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357; FEF2013D31
- OSTI ID:
- 1376723
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 2; ISSN 0003-6951
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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