Current-induced magnetization switching in epitaxial L10-FePt/Cr heterostructures through orbital Hall effect

The current-induced magnetization switching (CIMS) was successfully observed in epitaxial L1(0)-FePt/CrxPt1-x (0 & LE; x & LE; 1) heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy with large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. With increasing Cr content, the critical switching current density (J(c)) in FePt/CrxPt1-x heterostructures exhibited a decreasing trend, where it was greatly reduced by 69% in FePt/Cr (3d) films compared to FePt/Pt (5d) films with strong spin-orbit coupling. Furthermore, the same switching polarities were observed for all FePt/CrxPt1-x samples, indicating that the orbital Hall effect played a dominant role in CIMS for FePt/Cr films because of opposite spin Hall angles for Cr and Pt. Our results will put forward the applications of L1(0)-FePt in collaboration with the orbital Hall effect from 3d metals in current-controlled magnetic random access memory and neuromorphic computing. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.

Automated summary

Current-induced magnetization switching (CIMS) was observed in epitaxial L1(0)-FePt/CrxPt1-x heterostructures with large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The critical switching current density decreased with increasing Cr content and was significantly reduced in FePt/Cr (3d) films compared to FePt/Pt (5d) films with strong spin-orbit coupling.