Room-Temperature van der Waals Ferromagnet Switching by Spin-Orbit Torques

Weihao Li; Wenkai Zhu; Gaojie Zhang; Hao Wu; Shouguo Zhu; Runze Li; Enze Zhang; Xiaomin Zhang; Yongcheng Deng; Jing Zhang; Lixia Zhao; Haixin Chang; Kaiyou Wang

doi:10.1002/adma.202303688

Room-Temperature van der Waals Ferromagnet Switching by Spin-Orbit Torques

Adv Mater. 2023 Dec;35(51):e2303688. doi: 10.1002/adma.202303688. Epub 2023 Nov 16.

Authors

Weihao Li^{1

2}, Wenkai Zhu^{1

2}, Gaojie Zhang^{3

4}, Hao Wu^{3

4}, Shouguo Zhu^{1

2}, Runze Li^{1

2}, Enze Zhang^{1

2}, Xiaomin Zhang^{1

2}, Yongcheng Deng^{1

2}, Jing Zhang¹, Lixia Zhao^{1

5}, Haixin Chang^{3

4}, Kaiyou Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Superlattices and Microstructures, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100083, China.
² Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
³ Center for Joining and Electronic Packaging, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mold Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
⁴ Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
⁵ School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin, 300387, China.

PMID: 37890473
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202303688

Abstract

The emerging wide varieties of the van der Waals (vdW) magnets with atomically thin and smooth interfaces hold great promise for next-generation spintronic devices. However, due to the lower Curie temperature of the vdW ferromagnets than room temperature, electrically manipulating its magnetization at room temperature has not been realized. In this work, it is demonstrated that the perpendicular magnetization of the vdW ferromagnet Fe₃ GaTe₂ can be effectively switched at room temperature in the Fe₃ GaTe₂ /Pt bilayer by spin-orbit torques (SOTs) with a relatively low current density of 1.3 × 10⁷ A cm^-2 . Moreover, the high SOT efficiency of ξ_DL ≈ 0.28 is quantitatively determined by harmonic measurements, which is higher than those in Pt-based heavy metal/conventional ferromagnet devices. The findings of room-temperature vdW ferromagnet switching by SOTs provide a significant basis for the development of vdW-ferromagnet-based spintronic applications.

Keywords: Fe3GaTe2; room temperature; spin-orbit torque; van der Waals ferromagnets.

Abstract

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