Effect of heavy metal layer thickness on spin-orbit torque and current-induced switching in Hf|CoFeB|MgO structures
Abstract
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.
- Authors:
-
[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)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- 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)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1376723
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357; FEF2013D31
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Applied Physics Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 109; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 0003-6951
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Properties of nuclei; Ferromagnetic materials; Spin-orbit interactions; Spin Hall effect; Nonvolatile random-access memory Atomic force microscopy; Thin films; Magnetic anisotropy; Electrostatics; Magnetic fields
Citation Formats
Akyol, Mustafa, Jiang, Wanjun, Yu, Guoqiang, Fan, Yabin, Gunes, Mustafa, Ekicibil, Ahmet, Khalili Amiri, Pedram, and Wang, Kang L. Effect of heavy metal layer thickness on spin-orbit torque and current-induced switching in Hf|CoFeB|MgO structures. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1063/1.4958295.
Akyol, Mustafa, Jiang, Wanjun, Yu, Guoqiang, Fan, Yabin, Gunes, Mustafa, Ekicibil, Ahmet, Khalili Amiri, Pedram, & Wang, Kang L. Effect of heavy metal layer thickness on spin-orbit torque and current-induced switching in Hf|CoFeB|MgO structures. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4958295
Akyol, Mustafa, Jiang, Wanjun, Yu, Guoqiang, Fan, Yabin, Gunes, Mustafa, Ekicibil, Ahmet, Khalili Amiri, Pedram, and Wang, Kang L. Mon .
"Effect of heavy metal layer thickness on spin-orbit torque and current-induced switching in Hf|CoFeB|MgO structures". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4958295. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1376723.
@article{osti_1376723,
title = {Effect of heavy metal layer thickness on spin-orbit torque and current-induced switching in Hf|CoFeB|MgO structures},
author = {Akyol, Mustafa and Jiang, Wanjun and Yu, Guoqiang and Fan, Yabin and Gunes, Mustafa and Ekicibil, Ahmet and Khalili Amiri, Pedram and Wang, Kang L.},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1063/1.4958295},
journal = {Applied Physics Letters},
number = 2,
volume = 109,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jul 11 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Mon Jul 11 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
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