Rashba–Edelstein Effect in the h‐BN Van Der Waals Interface for Magnetization Switching
Qidong Xie, Weinan Lin, Jinghua Liang, Hengan Zhou, Moaz Waqar, Ming Lin, Siew Lang Teo, Hao Chen, Xiufang Lu, Xinyu Shu, Liang Liu, Shaohai Chen, Chenghang Zhou, Jianwei Chai, Ping Yang, Kian Ping Loh, John Wang, Wanjun Jiang, Aurélien Manchon, Hongxin Yang, Jingsheng Chen
Abstract
Abstract Van der Waals materials are attracting great attention in the field of spintronics due to their novel physical properties. For example, they are utilized as spin‐current generating materials in spin–orbit torque (SOT) devices, which offers an electrical way to control the magnetic state and is promising for future low‐power electronics. However, SOTs have mostly been demonstrated in vdW materials with strong spin–orbit coupling (SOC). Here, the observation of a current‐induced SOT in the h‐BN/SrRuO 3 bilayer structure is reported, where the vdW material (h‐BN) is an insulator with negligible SOC. Importantly, this SOT is strong enough to induce the switching of the perpendicular magnetization in SrRuO 3 . First‐principles calculations suggest a giant Rashba effect at the interface between vdW material and SrRuO 3 (110) pc thin film, which leads to the observed SOT based on a simplified tight‐binding model. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the current‐induced magnetization switching can be modulated by the electric field. This study paves the way for exploring the current‐induced SOT and magnetization switching by integrating vdW materials with ferromagnets.