Highly efficient field-free switching of perpendicular yttrium iron garnet with collinear spin current

Man Yang; Liang Sun; Yulun Zeng; Jun Cheng; Kang He; Xi Yang; Ziqiang Wang; Longqian Yu; Heng Niu; Tongzhou Ji; Gong Chen; Bingfeng Miao; Xiangrong Wang; Haifeng Ding

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47577-x

Highly efficient field-free switching of perpendicular yttrium iron garnet with collinear spin current

Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 13;15(1):3201. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47577-x.

Authors

Man Yang^#¹, Liang Sun^#¹, Yulun Zeng¹, Jun Cheng¹, Kang He¹, Xi Yang¹, Ziqiang Wang¹, Longqian Yu¹, Heng Niu¹, Tongzhou Ji¹, Gong Chen¹, Bingfeng Miao², Xiangrong Wang^{3

4}, Haifeng Ding⁵

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Department of Physics, Nanjing University, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, 210093, P.R. China.
² National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Department of Physics, Nanjing University, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, 210093, P.R. China. bfmiao@nju.edu.cn.
³ Physics Department, The Hongkong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hongkong. phxwan@ust.hk.
⁴ HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, 518057, P.R. China. phxwan@ust.hk.
⁵ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Department of Physics, Nanjing University, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, 210093, P.R. China. hfding@nju.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Yttrium iron garnet, a material possessing ultralow magnetic damping and extraordinarily long magnon diffusion length, is the most widely studied magnetic insulator in spintronics and magnonics. Field-free electrical control of perpendicular yttrium iron garnet magnetization with considerable efficiency is highly desired for excellent device performance. Here, we demonstrate such an accomplishment with a collinear spin current, whose spin polarization and propagation direction are both perpendicular to the interface. Remarkably, the field-free magnetization switching is achieved not only with a heavy-metal-free material, Permalloy, but also with a higher efficiency as compared with a typical heavy metal, Pt. Combined with the direct and inverse effect measurements, we ascribe the collinear spin current to the anomalous spin Hall effect in Permalloy. Our findings provide a new insight into spin current generation in Permalloy and open an avenue in spintronic devices.