Magnetisation switching dynamics induced by combination of spin transfer torque and spin orbit torque

Andrea Meo; Jessada Chureemart; Roy W Chantrell; Phanwadee Chureemart

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-07277-2

Magnetisation switching dynamics induced by combination of spin transfer torque and spin orbit torque

Sci Rep. 2022 Mar 1;12(1):3380. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-07277-2.

Authors

Andrea Meo¹, Jessada Chureemart², Roy W Chantrell³, Phanwadee Chureemart⁴

Affiliations

¹ Magnetic information storage technology (MINT) research unit, Department of Physics, Mahasarakham University, Mahasarakham, 44150, Thailand. andrea.m@msu.ac.th.
² Magnetic information storage technology (MINT) research unit, Department of Physics, Mahasarakham University, Mahasarakham, 44150, Thailand.
³ Department of Physics, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK.
⁴ Magnetic information storage technology (MINT) research unit, Department of Physics, Mahasarakham University, Mahasarakham, 44150, Thailand. phanwadee.c@msu.ac.th.

Abstract

We present a theoretical investigation of the magnetisation reversal process in CoFeB-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). We perform atomistic spin simulations of magnetisation dynamics induced by combination of spin orbit torque (SOT) and spin transfer torque (STT). Within the model the effect of SOT is introduced as a Slonczewski formalism, whereas the effect of STT is included via a spin accumulation model. We investigate a system of CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB coupled with a heavy metal layer where the charge current is injected into the plane of the heavy metal meanwhile the other charge current flows perpendicular into the MTJ structure. Our results reveal that SOT can assist the precessional switching induced by spin polarised current within a certain range of injected current densities yielding an efficient and fast reversal on the sub-nanosecond timescale. The combination of STT and SOT gives a promising pathway to improve high performance CoFeB-based devices with high speed and low power consumption.