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arXiv · 2609.04642

Evidence of Crystal-Field-Mediated Anisotropic Orbital Rashba Effect in Epitaxial Ru/FM Heterostructure

Abstract

Electrical generation of orbital angular momentum provides a promising route to current-induced torques, yet effective control of orbital Rashba textures still remains challenging, particularly because the role of the interfacial crystal field remains largely unexplored. Here, we report experimental evidence for a crystal-field-mediated interfacial anisotropic orbital Rashba effect (AORE) in epitaxial Ru/ferromagnet heterostructures. Total orbital torque was disentangled into an isotropic bulk contribution and an in-plane anisotropic interfacial contribution. The latter was strongly suppressed by degrading the crystallinity of either constituent and by inserting a Cu spacer, highlighting the essential roles of coherent interfacial orbital hybridization and direct Ru/ferromagnet contact. These results identify interfacial crystal-field coherency as a key ingredient in manipulating orbital Rashba textures and establish a route toward engineering the symmetry and directionality of orbital torques.

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Yu Zhang, Wenhao Niu, Yumin Yang, Wenqi Xu, Gengchen Meng, Hailong Wang, Na Lei, Dahai Wei. 2026-09-04. Evidence of Crystal-Field-Mediated Anisotropic Orbital Rashba Effect in Epitaxial Ru/FM Heterostructure. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04642

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