Highly Efficient Room-Temperature Spin-Orbit-Torque Switching in a Van der Waals heterostructure of Topological Insulator and Ferromagnet

Journal
Advanced Science
Date
2024.03.23
Abstract

All-Van der Waals (vdW)-material-based heterostructures with atomically sharp interfaces offer a versatile platform for high-performing spintronic functionalities at room temperature. One of the key components is vdW topological insulators (TIs), which can produce a strong spin-orbit-torque (SOT) through the spin-momentum locking of their topological surface state (TSS). However, the relatively low conductance of the TSS introduces a current leakage problem through the bulk states of the TI or the adjacent ferromagnetic metal layers, reducing the interfacial charge-to-spin conversion efficiency (qICS). Here we used a van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure consisting of atomically-thin layers of a bulk-insulating topological insulator Sn-doped Bi1.1Sb0.9Te2S1 and a room-temperature ferromagnet Fe3GaTe2, to enhance the relative current ratio on the TSS up to ~ 20%. The resulting qICS reaches ~ 1.65 nm-1 and the critical current density Jc ~ 0.9 ´ 106 Acm-2 at 300 K, surpassing the performance of TI-based and heavy-metal-based SOT devices. These findings demonstrate that an all-vdW heterostructure with thickness optimization offers a promising platform for efficient current-controlled magnetization switching at room temperature.

Reference
Adv. Sci.2024, 2400893
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202400893