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Induction of coherent magnetization switching in a few atomic layers of FeCo using voltage pulses

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 39–43 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The magnetization direction of a metallic magnet has generally been controlled by a magnetic field or by spin-current injection into nanosized magnetic cells1,2. Both these methods use an electric current to control the magnetization direction; therefore, they are energy consuming. Magnetization control using an electric field3 is considered desirable because of its expected ultra-low power consumption and coherent behaviour. Previous experimental approaches towards achieving voltage control of magnetization switching have used single ferromagnetic layers with and without piezoelectric materials, ferromagnetic semiconductors, multiferroic materials, and their hybrid systems4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15. However, the coherent control of magnetization using voltage signals has not thus far been realized. Also, bistable magnetization switching (which is essential in information storage) possesses intrinsic difficulties because an electric field does not break time-reversal symmetry. Here, we demonstrate a coherent precessional magnetization switching using electric field pulses in nanoscale magnetic cells with a few atomic FeCo (001) epitaxial layers adjacent to a MgO barrier. Furthermore, we demonstrate the realization of bistable toggle switching using the coherent precessions. The estimated power consumption for single switching in the ideal equivalent switching circuit can be of the order of 104kBT, suggesting a reduction factor of 1/500 when compared with that of the spin-current-injection switching process.

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Figure 1: Tunnelling magnetoresistance and voltage-induced anisotropy change in an ultrathin FeCo (001)/MgO (001)/Fe (001) junction.
Figure 2: Macro-spin model simulation of coherent magnetization switching under various pulse duration conditions.
Figure 3: Pulse-voltage-induced coherent magnetization switching.
Figure 4: Switching probability (Pswitch) diagram as functions of pulse duration time τpulse and external magnetic field.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank H. Tomita for his help with the simulations as well as S. Miwa for useful discussions. Y. Shiota thanks the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for the fellowship. Part of this research was conducted under the financial support of the Global Center of Excellence (G-COE) program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT).

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Author notes

  1. Takayuki Nozaki

    Present address: Present address: Spintronics Research Center, AIST, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8568, Japan,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-8531, Japan

    Yoichi Shiota, Takayuki Nozaki, Frédéric Bonell, Shinichi Murakami, Teruya Shinjo & Yoshishige Suzuki

  2. CREST, Japan Science Technology Agency, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi, Saitama, 3323-0012, Japan

    Takayuki Nozaki, Shinichi Murakami & Yoshishige Suzuki

Authors
  1. Yoichi Shiota
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  6. Yoshishige Suzuki
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Contributions

Y. Suzuki conceived and designed the experiments. Y. Shiota performed the experiments, simulations, and analysis. T.N. and Y. Suzuki led experiments and physical discussions. F.B., S.M., and T.S. contributed to the general discussions. Y. Shiota wrote the paper with reviews and inputs from Y. Suzuki and T.N.

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Correspondence to Yoshishige Suzuki.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Shiota, Y., Nozaki, T., Bonell, F. et al. Induction of coherent magnetization switching in a few atomic layers of FeCo using voltage pulses. Nature Mater 11, 39–43 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3172

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