Current-induced magnetization switching using electrically-insulating spin-torquegenerator

摘要

Current-induced magnetization switching through spin-orbit torques (SOTs) is the fundamental buildingblock of spin-orbitronics. The SOTs generally arise from the spin-orbit coupling of heavy metals. However,even in a heterostructure where a metallic magnet is sandwiched by two different insulators, a nonzerocurrent-induced SOT is expected because of the broken inversion symmetry; an electrical insulator can be aspin-torque generator.