Current-induced spin torques are of great interest to manipulate the orientation of nanomagnets without applying external magnetic fields. They find direct application in non-volatile data storage and logic devices. Recent demonstrations of perpendicular magnetization switching induced by in-plane current injection in ferromagnetic heterostructures have drawn attention to a class of spin torques based on orbital-to-spin momentum transfer (SOTs), which is alternative to pure spin transfer torque (STT) between non collinear magnetic layers and amenable to more diversified device functions. We will present advance made to build first perpendicular SOT-MRAM devices and to describe the symmetry and amplitudes of SOTs, revealing unexpected physics.

Date Published: 17 August 2014
PDF: 1 pages
Proc. SPIE 9167, Spintronics VII, 91671S (17 August 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2060795

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9167:
Spintronics VII
Henri-Jean Drouhin; Jean-Eric Wegrowe; Manijeh Razeghi, Editor(s)