Large field-like torque in amorphous Ru2Sn3 originated from the intrinsic spin Hall effect

TL;DR

This study reveals that amorphous Ru2Sn3 exhibits a large field-like spin-orbit torque at room temperature, primarily originating from the intrinsic spin Hall effect, which could enhance magnetic switching efficiency.

Contribution

It demonstrates the significant field-like torque in amorphous Ru2Sn3 due to the intrinsic spin Hall effect, differing from traditional spin Hall materials.

Findings

Large field-like torque in Ru2Sn3 at room temperature

Field-like torque efficiency is up to three times larger than damping-like torque at 300K

Temperature dependence indicates intrinsic and extrinsic spin Hall effects contribute differently

Abstract

We investigated temperature dependent current driven spin-orbit torques in magnetron sputtered Ru2Sn3 (4 and 10 nm) /Co20Fe60B20 (5 nm) layered structures with in-plane magnetic anisotropy. The room temperature damping-like and field-like spin torque efficiencies of the amorphous Ru2Sn3 films were measured to be 0.14 +- 0.008 (0.07 +- 0.012) and -0.03 +- 0.006 (-0.20 +- 0.009), for the 4 (10 nm) films respectively, by utilizing the second harmonic Hall technique. The large field-like torque in the relatively thicker Ru2Sn3 (10 nm) thin film is unique compared to the traditional spin Hall materials interfaced with thick magnetic layers with in-plane magnetic anisotropy which typically have dominant damping-like and negligible field-like torques. Additionally, the observed room temperature field-like torque efficiency in Ru2Sn3 (10 nm)/CoFeB (5 nm) is up to three times larger than the damping-like torque (-0.20 +- 0.009 and 0.07 +- 0.012, respectively) and thirty times larger at 50 K (-0.29 +- 0.014 and 0.009 +- 0.017, respectively). The temperature dependence of the field-like torques show dominant contributions from the intrinsic spin Hall effect while the damping-like torques show dominate contributions from the extrinsic spin Hall effects, skew scattering and side jump. Through macro-spin calculations, we found that including field-like torques on the order or larger than the damping-like torque can reduce the switching critical current and decrease magnetization procession for a perpendicular ferromagnetic layer.