Electric-field modification of interfacial spin-orbit field-vector

Current induced spin-orbit magnetic fields (iSOFs), arising either in single-crystalline ferromagnets with broken inversion symmetry1,2 or in non-magnetic metal/ferromagnetic metal bilayers3,4, can produce spin-orbit torques which act on a ferromagnet's magnetization,thus offering an efficient...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2018-04
Main Authors: Chen, L, Gmitra, M, Vogel, M, Islinger, R, Kronseder, M, Schuh, D, Bougeard, D, Fabian, J, Weiss, D, Back, C H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystal structure
Crystallinity
Electric fields
Ferromagnetism
Heterostructures
Power consumption
Single crystals
Spin-orbit interactions
Torque
Vector currents
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Summary:Current induced spin-orbit magnetic fields (iSOFs), arising either in single-crystalline ferromagnets with broken inversion symmetry1,2 or in non-magnetic metal/ferromagnetic metal bilayers3,4, can produce spin-orbit torques which act on a ferromagnet's magnetization,thus offering an efficient way for its manipulation.To further reduce power consumption in spin-orbit torque devices, it is highly desirable to control iSOFs by the field-effect, where power consumption is determined by charging/discharging a capacitor5,6. In particular, efficient electric-field control of iSOFs acting on ferromagnetic metals is of vital importance for practical applications. It is known that in single crystalline Fe/GaAs (001) heterostructures with C2v symmetry, interfacial SOFs emerge at the Fe/GaAs (001) interface due to the lack of inversion symmetry7,8. Here, we show that by applying a gate-voltage across the Fe/GaAs interface, interfacial SOFs acting on Fe can be robustly modulated via the change of the magnitude of the interfacial spin-orbit interaction. Our results show that, for the first time, the electric-field in a Schottky barrier is capable of modifying SOFs, which can be exploited for the development of low-power-consumption spin-orbit torque devices.
ISSN:2331-8422