Recent experiments on current-induced domain-wall motion in chiral domain walls reveal important contributions both from spin-orbit torques (SOTs) and from the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction ...(DMI). We derive a Berry phase expression for the DMI and show that within this Berry phase theory DMI and SOTs are intimately related, in a way formally analogous to the relation between orbital magnetization (OM) and anomalous Hall effect (AHE). We introduce the concept of the twist torque moment, which probes the internal twist of wavepackets in chiral magnets in a similar way as the orbital moment probes the wavepacket's internal self-rotation. We propose to interpret the Berry phase theory of DMI as a theory of spiralization in analogy to the modern theory of OM. We show that the twist torque moment and the spiralization together give rise to a Berry phase governing the response of the SOT to thermal gradients, in analogy to the intrinsic anomalous Nernst effect. The Berry phase theory of DMI is computationally very efficient because it only needs the electronic structure of the collinear magnetic system as input. As an application of the formalism we compute the DMI in Co/Pt(111), O/Co/Pt(111) and Al/Co/Pt(111) magnetic bi- and trilayers and show that the DMI is highly anisotropic in these systems.
Terahertz electromagnetic radiation is extremely useful for numerous applications, including imaging and spectroscopy. It is thus highly desirable to have an efficient table-top emitter covering the ...1-30THz window that is driven by a low-cost, low-power femtosecond laser oscillator. So far, all solid-state emitters solely exploit physics related to the electron charge and deliver emission spectra with substantial gaps. Here, we take advantage of the electron spin to realize a conceptually new terahertz source that relies on three tailored fundamental spintronic and photonic phenomena in magnetic metal multilayers: ultrafast photoinduced spin currents, the inverse spin-Hall effect and a broadband Fabry-Perot resonance. Guided by an analytical model, this spintronic route offers unique possibilities for systematic optimization. We find that a 5.8-nm-thick W/CoFeB/Pt trilayer generates ultrashort pulses fully covering the 1-30THz range. Our novel source outperforms laser-oscillator-driven emitters such as ZnTe(110) crystals in terms of bandwidth, terahertz field amplitude, flexibility, scalability and cost.
Electrical switching of an antiferromagnet Wadley, P.; Howells, B.; Železný, J. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
02/2016, Letnik:
351, Številka:
6273
Journal Article
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Antiferromagnets are hard to control by external magnetic fields because of the alternating directions of magnetic moments on individual atoms and the resulting zero net magnetization. However, ...relativistic quantum mechanics allows for generating current-induced internal fields whose sign alternates with the periodicity of the antiferromagnetic lattice. Using these fields, which couple strongly to the antiferromagnetic order, we demonstrate room-temperature electrical switching between stable configurations in antiferromagnetic CuMnAs thin-film devices by applied current with magnitudes of order 10⁶ ampere per square centimeter. Electrical writing is combined in our solid-state memory with electrical readout and the stored magnetic state is insensitive to and produces no external magnetic field perturbations, which illustrates the unique merits of antiferromagnets for spintronics.
Materials that crystallize in diamond-related lattices, with Si and GaAs as their prime examples, are at the foundation of modern electronics. Simultaneously, inversion asymmetries in their crystal ...structure and relativistic spinorbit coupling led to discoveries of non-equilibrium spin-polarization phenomena that are now extensively explored as an electrical means for manipulating magnetic moments in a variety of spintronic structures. Current research of these relativistic spinorbit torques focuses primarily on magnetic transition-metal multilayers. The low-temperature diluted magnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As, in which spinorbit torques were initially discovered, has so far remained the only example showing the phenomenon among bulk non-centrosymmetric ferromagnets. Here we present a general framework, based on the complete set of crystallographic point groups, for identifying the potential presence and symmetry of spinorbit torques in non-centrosymmetric crystals. Among the candidate room-temperature ferromagnets we chose to use NiMnSb, which is a member of the broad family of magnetic Heusler compounds. By performing all-electrical ferromagnetic resonance measurements in single-crystal epilayers of NiMnSb we detect room-temperature spinorbit torques generated by eective elds of the expected symmetry and of a magnitude consistent with our ab initio calculations.
The idea to use not only the charge but also the spin of electrons in the operation of electronic devices has led to the development of spintronics, causing a revolution in how information is stored ...and processed. A novel advancement would be to develop ultrafast spintronics using femtosecond laser pulses. Employing terahertz (10(12) Hz) emission spectroscopy and exploiting the spin-orbit interaction, we demonstrate the optical generation of electric photocurrents in metallic ferromagnetic heterostructures at the femtosecond timescale. The direction of the photocurrent is controlled by the helicity of the circularly polarized light. These results open up new opportunities for realizing spintronics in the unprecedented terahertz regime and provide new insights in all-optical control of magnetism.
We measure and analyze the chirality of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya-interaction (DMI) stabilized spin textures in multilayers of Ta|Co_{20}F_{60}B_{20}|MgO. The effective DMI is measured experimentally ...using domain wall motion measurements, both in the presence (using spin-orbit torques) and absence of driving currents (using magnetic fields). We observe that the current-induced domain wall motion yields a change in effective DMI magnitude and opposite domain wall chirality when compared to field-induced domain wall motion (without current). We explore this effect, which we refer to as current-induced DMI, by providing possible explanations for its emergence, and explore the possibility of its manifestation in the framework of recent theoretical predictions of DMI modifications due to spin currents.
In spin-based electronics, information is encoded by the spin state of electron bunches. Processing this information requires the controlled transport of spin angular momentum through a solid, ...preferably at frequencies reaching the so far unexplored terahertz regime. Here, we demonstrate, by experiment and theory, that the temporal shape of femtosecond spin current bursts can be manipulated by using specifically designed magnetic heterostructures. A laser pulse is used to drive spins from a ferromagnetic iron thin film into a non-magnetic cap layer that has either low (ruthenium) or high (gold) electron mobility. The resulting transient spin current is detected by means of an ultrafast, contactless amperemeter based on the inverse spin Hall effect, which converts the spin flow into a terahertz electromagnetic pulse. We find that the ruthenium cap layer yields a considerably longer spin current pulse because electrons are injected into ruthenium d states, which have a much lower mobility than gold sp states. Thus, spin current pulses and the resulting terahertz transients can be shaped by tailoring magnetic heterostructures, which opens the door to engineering high-speed spintronic devices and, potentially, broadband terahertz emitters.
We carry out density functional theory calculations which demonstrate that the electron dynamics in the Skyrmion phase of Fe-rich Mn1-xFexGe alloys is governed by Berry phase physics. We observe that ...the magnitude of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction directly related to the mixed space-momentum Berry phases, changes sign and magnitude with concentration x in direct correlation with the data of Shibata et al. Nat. Nanotechnol. 8, 723 (2013). The computed anomalous and topological Hall effects in FeGe are also in good agreement with available experiments. We further develop a simple tight-binding model able to explain these findings. Finally, we show that the adiabatic Berry phase picture is violated in the Mn-rich limit of the alloys.
Orbital current has emerged over the past years as one of the key novel concepts in magnetotransport. Here, we demonstrate that laser pulses can be used to generate large and robust nonrelativistic ...orbital currents in systems where the inversion symmetry is broken by the orbital Rashba effect. By referring to model and first principles tools, we demonstrate that orbital Rashba effect, accompanied by crystal field splitting, can mediate robust orbital photocurrents without a need for spin-orbit interaction even in metallic systems. We show that such nonrelativistic orbital photocurrents are translated into derivative photocurrents of spin when relativistic effects are taken into account. We thus promote orbital photocurrents as a promising platform for optical generation of currents of angular momentum, and discuss their possible applications.
We address the importance of the modern theory of orbital magnetization for spintronics. Based on an all-electron first-principles approach, we demonstrate that the predictive power of the routinely ...employed “atom-centered” approximation is limited to materials like elemental bulk ferromagnets, while the application of the modern theory of orbital magnetization is crucial in chemically or structurally inhomogeneous systems such as magnetic thin films, and materials exhibiting nontrivial topology in reciprocal and real space, e.g., Chern insulators or noncollinear systems. We find that the modern theory is particularly crucial for describing magnetism in a class of materials that we suggest here-topological orbital ferromagnets.
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