Effect of Mg Oxidation Degree on Rashba-Effect-Induced Torques in Ta/CoFeB/Mg(MgO) Multilayer

Abstract

Control of spin-orbit torques (SOTs) in heavy metal/ferromagnetic metal/oxide structures is critical to the realization of promising SOT magnetic random access memory devices. In this paper, the SOT-induced effective fields in Ta/CoFeB/Mg(MgO) structures with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) were investigated through the low-current-induced lock-in technique. This paper demonstrates that the industrially preferred MgO preparation method allows us to readily manipulate the oxidation degree of the Mg(MgO) and produce a significant effect on the SOT as well as PMA. Importantly, the ratio of the field-like torque to the damping-like torque efficiency can be controlled without thinning or oxidizing the bottom Ta layer, which is the source of spinHall-effect-induced damping-like torque. The achieved ratio of ~2.5 satisfies the condition that is necessary for the SOT-induced switching without an external magnetic field based on the recently proposed half-precessional switching mechanism.