Thermally-Assisted Spin-Transfer Torque Magnetization Reversal of Uniaxial Nanomagnets in Energy Space

TL;DR

This paper analytically investigates how thermal noise and spin-torque influence the switching time of uniaxial nanomagnets, revealing a scaling law and independence from angle, with implications for magnetic memory devices.

Contribution

It provides an analytical framework for understanding thermally-assisted magnetization reversal in uniaxial nanomagnets using energy space dynamics.

Findings

Switching time scales exponentially with current near zero.

Switching time is independent of the angle between spin current and magnet axis.

Results confirm and extend recent literature on thermal effects in spin transfer torque.

Abstract

The asymptotic behavior of switching time as a function of current for a uniaxial macrospin under the effects of both spin-torque and thermal noise is explored analytically by focusing on its diffusive energy space dynamics. The scaling dependence ($I\rightarrow 0$, $<\tau\propto\exp(-\xi(1-I)^2)$) is shown to confirm recent literature results. The analysis shows the mean switching time to be functionally independent of the angle between the spin current and magnet's uniaxial axes. These results have important implications for modeling the energetics of thermally assisted magnetization reversal of spin transfer magnetic random access memory bit cells.