Invited Paper EM+MN-TuM5
Thin Film Materials in Novel Spintronic Devices

Tuesday, November 8, 2016, 9:20 am, Room 102A

Tomorrow’s spintronic MRAM (Magnetic Random Access Memory) and logic processors could exploit the physics of the giant spin Hall effect (GSHE) for switching bits, but the materials engineering is challenging. Solids with large atomic numbers and resistivities exhibit very large Spin Hall Angle (SHA), a key and characterizing parameter of GSHE. The origin of GSHE is the enhanced spin-orbit coupling (SOC), based on which the search on solids with even larger SHA continues. Some of these solids are difficult to fabricate due to their metastable structures. We have realized robust perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) in a layered structure combining the elusive, metastable β phase of tungsten and a ferromagnetic thin film. The large spin-orbit coupling in β-W yields, after suitable annealing, a very low critical current density for magnetization switching. Our structures furthermore are easily fabricated, making them even more technologically promising and compatible to modern semiconductor fabrication process.