arXiv subjects

Hongyu An

Publications and source records attributed to Hongyu An.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Spin absorption at ferromagnetic-metal/platinum-oxide interface

We investigate the absorption of a spin current at a ferromagnetic-metal/Pt-oxide interface by measuring current-induced ferromagnetic resonance. The spin absorption was characterized by the magnetic damping of the heterostructure. We show that the magnetic damping of a Ni$_{81}$Fe$_{19}$ film is clearly enhanced by attaching Pt-oxide on the Ni$_{81}$Fe$_{19}$ film. The damping enhancement is disappeared by inserting an ultrathin Cu layer between the Ni$_{81}$Fe$_{19}$ and Pt-oxide layers. These results demonstrate an essential role of the direct contact between the Ni$_{81}$Fe$_{19}$ and Pt-oxide to induce sizable interface spin-orbit coupling. Furthermore, the spin-absorption parameter of the Ni$_{81}$Fe$_{19}$/Pt-oxide interface is comparable to that of intensively studied heterostructures with strong spin-orbit coupling, such as an oxide interface, topological insulators, metallic junctions with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. This result illustrates strong spin-orbit coupling at the ferromagnetic-metal/Pt-oxide interface, providing an important piece of information for quantitative understanding the spin absorption and spin-charge conversion at the ferromagnetic-metal/metallic-oxide interface.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Intrinsic spin-orbit torque arising from Berry curvature in metallic-magnet/Cu-oxide interface

We report the observation of the intrinsic damping-like spin-orbit torque (SOT) arising from the Berry curvature in metallic-magnet/CuO$_x$ heterostructures. We show that a robust damping-like SOT, an order of magnitude larger than a field-like SOT, is generated in the heterostructure despite the absence of the bulk spin-orbit effect in the CuO$_x$ layer. Furthermore, by tuning the interface oxidation level, we demonstrate that the field-like SOT changes drastically and even switches its sign, which originates from oxygen modulated spin-dependent disorder. These results provide an important information for fundamental understanding of the physics of the SOTs.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Current-induced magnetization switching using electrically-insulating spin-torque generator

Current-induced magnetization switching through spin-orbit torques (SOTs) is the fundamental building block of spin-orbitronics. The SOTs generally arise from the spin-orbit coupling of heavy metals. However, even in a heterostructure where a metallic magnet is sandwiched by two different insulators, a nonzero current-induced SOT is expected because of the broken inversion symmetry; an electrical insulator can be a spin-torque generator. Here, we demonstrate current-induced magnetization switching using an insulator. We show that oxygen incorporation into the most widely used spintronic material, Pt, turns the heavy metal into an electrically-insulating generator of the SOTs, enabling the electrical switching of perpendicular magnetization in a ferrimagnet sandwiched by electrically-insulating oxides. We further found that the SOTs generated from the Pt oxide can be controlled electrically through voltage-driven oxygen migration. These findings open a route towards energy-efficient, voltage-programmable spin-orbit devices based on solid-state switching of heavy metal oxidation.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Rashba-Edelstein Magnetoresistance in Metallic Heterostructure

We report the observation of magnetoresistance originating from Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in a metallic heterostructure: the Rashba-Edelstein (RE) magnetoresistance. We show that the simultaneous action of the direct and inverse RE effects in a Bi/Ag/CoFeB trilayer couples current-induced spin accumulation to the electric resistance. The electric resistance changes with the magnetic-field angle, reminiscent of the spin Hall magnetoresistance, despite the fact that bulk SOC is not responsible for the magnetoresistance. We further found that, even when the magnetization is saturated, the resistance increases with increasing the magnetic-field strength, which is attributed to the Hanle magnetoresistance in this system.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Asymmetric Pt/Co/Pt structure as a platform for extracting pure spin Hall torque

We have quantitatively studied the spin-orbit torque purely generated by the spin Hall effect in a wide range of temperatures by intensionally eliminating the Rashba spin-orbit torque using Pt/Co/Pt trilayers with asymmetric thicknesses of the top and bottom Pt layers. The vanishingly small contribution from the Rashba effect has been confirmed through the vector measurements of the current-induced effective fields. In order to precisely determine the value of the spin Hall torque, the complete cancelation of the spin Hall torque has been verified by fabricating symmetric Pt/Co/Pt structure on SiO2 and Gd3Ga5O12 (GGG) substrates. Despite of the complete cance- lation on the GGG substrate, the spin Hall torque cannot be completely canceled out even when the top and bottom Pt layers have same thicknesses on the SiO2 substrate, which suggests that Pt/Co/Pt trilayers on a GGG substrate is a suitable system for precise measurements of the spin Hall torque. The result of the vector measurements on Pt/Co/Pt/GGG from 300 to 10 K shows that the spin Hall torque is almost independent of temperature, which is quantitatively reproduced under the assumption of the temperature-independent spin Hall angle of Pt.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗