Drag Voltages in a Superconductor/Insulator/Ferromagnet Trilayer

The interaction between two spatially separated systems is of strong interest in order to study a wide class of unconventional effects at cryogenic temperatures. Here we report on drag transverse voltage effects in multilayered systems containing superconducting and ferromagnetic materials. The sample under test is a conventional superconductor/insulator/ferromagnet (S/I/F) trilayer in a cross configuration. S/F as well as S/N (here N stands for normal metal) bilayers in the same geometry are also analyzed for comparison. Current–voltage (I–V) characteristics measured at T = 4.2 K in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field show strong peculiarities related to the interaction between the layers. The results are interpreted in terms of interaction effects between the layers.

Orbital torque in magnetic bilayers

The orbital Hall effect describes the generation of the orbital current flowing in a perpendicular direction to an external electric field, analogous to the spin Hall effect. As the orbital current carries the angular momentum as the spin current does, injection of the orbital current into a ferromagnet can result in torque on the magnetization, which provides a way to detect the orbital Hall effect. With this motivation, we examine the current-induced spin-orbit torques in various ferromagnet/heavy metal bilayers by theory and experiment. Analysis of the magnetic torque reveals the presence of the contribution from the orbital Hall effect in the heavy metal, which competes with the contribution from the spin Hall effect. In particular, we find that the net torque in Ni/Ta bilayers is opposite in sign to the spin Hall theory prediction but instead consistent with the orbital Hall theory, which unambiguously confirms the orbital torque generated by the orbital Hall effect. Our finding opens a possibility of utilizing the orbital current for spintronic device applications, and it will invigorate researches on spin-orbit-coupled phenomena based on orbital engineering.

Superconductivity assisted change of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in V/MgO/Fe junctions

Controlling the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) in thin films has received considerable attention in recent years due to its technological importance. PMA based devices usually involve heavy-metal (oxide)/ferromagnetic-metal bilayers, where, thanks to interfacial spin-orbit coupling (SOC), the in-plane (IP) stability of the magnetisation is broken. Here we show that in V/MgO/Fe(001) epitaxial junctions with competing in-plane and out-of-plane (OOP) magnetic anisotropies, the SOC mediated interaction between a ferromagnet (FM) and a superconductor (SC) enhances the effective PMA below the superconducting transition. This produces a partial magnetisation reorientation without any applied field for all but the largest junctions, where the IP anisotropy is more robust; for the smallest junctions there is a reduction of the field required to induce a complete OOP transition ($$H_\text {OOP}$$ H OOP ) due to the stronger competition between the IP and OOP anisotropies. Our results suggest that the degree of effective PMA could be controlled by the junction lateral size in the presence of superconductivity and an applied electric field. We also discuss how the $$H_\text {OOP}$$ H OOP field could be affected by the interaction between magnetic stray fields and superconducting vortices. Our experimental findings, supported by numerical modelling of the ferromagnet-superconductor interaction, open pathways to active control of magnetic anisotropy in the emerging dissipation-free superconducting spin electronics.

Orbital torque in magnetic bilayers

The spin Hall effect describes an electric-field-induced generation of spin currents through spin-orbit coupling. Since the spin-orbit coupling alone cannot generate the angular momentum, there must be a more fundamental process of the spin Hall effect. Theories suggested that an electric-field-induced generation of orbital currents, called orbital Hall effect, is the fundamental process, and spin currents are subsequently converted from orbital currents. Despite its fundamental importance, the orbital Hall effect has not been confirmed experimentally. Motivated by a recent theoretical proposal of torque generation by orbital angular momentum injection, we examine the current-induced torque experimentally in various ferromagnet/heavy metal bilayers. We find that the net torque in Ni/Ta bilayers is opposite in sign to the spin Hall theory prediction but instead consistent with the orbital Hall theory, which confirms the orbital torque generated by the orbital Hall effect. It will invigorate researches on spin-orbit-coupled phenomena based on orbital engineering.