Electric-field manipulation of magnetic order has proved of both fundamental and technological importance in spintronic devices. So far, electric-field control of ferromagnetism, magnetization and magnetic anisotropy has been explored in various magnetic materials, but the efficient electric-field control of spin-orbit torque (SOT) still remains elusive. Here, we report the effective electric-field control of a giant SOT in a Cr-doped topological insulator (TI) thin film using a top-gate field-effect transistor structure. The SOT strength can be modulated by a factor of four within the accessible gate voltage range, and it shows strong correlation with the spin-polarized surface current in the film. Furthermore, we demonstrate the magnetization switching by scanning gate voltage with constant current and in-plane magnetic field applied in the film. The effective electric-field control of SOT and the giant spin-torque efficiency in Cr-doped TI may lead to the development of energy-efficient gate-controlled spin-torque devices compatible with modern field-effect semiconductor technologies.

We review the recent progress in the development of magnetoelectric random access memory (MeRAM), based on electric-fieldcontrolled writing in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). MeRAM uses the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect for readout in a two-terminal memory element, similar to other types of magnetic random access memory (MRAM). However, the writing of information is performed by voltage control of the magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) at the interface of an MgO tunnel barrier and the CoFeB-based free layer, as opposed to current-controlled (e.g. spin-transfer torque, STT or spin-orbit torque, SOT) mechanisms. We present results on voltage-induced switching of MTJs in both resonant (precessional) and thermally activated regimes, which demonstrate fast (< 1 ns) and ultralow-power (< 40 fJ/bit) write operation at voltages ~ 1.5 -2 V. We also discuss the implications of the VCMA-based write mechanism on memory array design, highlighting the possibility of crossbar implementation for high bit density. Results are presented from a 1 Kb MeRAM test array. Endurance and voltage scaling data are presented. The scaling behavior is analyzed, and material-level requirements are discussed for the translation of MeRAM into mainstream memory applications.Index Terms-Nonvolatile memory, MeRAM, MRAM, voltage control of magnetic anisotropy, spin transfer torque. † These authors contributed equally to this work.

We study the effect of the oxide layer on the current-induced spin-orbit torques (SOTs) in perpendicularly magnetized Hf|CoFeB|MgO (MgO-capped) or Hf|CoFeB|TaOx (TaOx-capped) structures. The effective fields corresponding to both the field-like and damping-like current-induced SOTs are characterized using electric transport measurements. Both torques are found to be significantly stronger in MgO-capped structures than those in TaOx-capped structures. The difference in field-like and damping-like SOTs in the different structures may be attributed to the different Rashba-like Hamiltonian, arising from the difference in the electric potential profiles across the oxide|ferromagnet interfaces in the two cases, as well as possible structural and oxidation differences in the underlying CoFeB and Hf layers. Our results show that the oxide layer in heavy-metal|ferromagnet|oxide trilayer structures has a very significant effect on the generated SOTs for manipulation of ferromagnetic layers. These findings could potentially be used to engineer SOT devices with enhanced current-induced switching efficiency.

We study the current-driven perpendicular magnetization switching in Ta/CoFeB(wedge)/[TaOx or MgO/TaOx] devices with a lateral structural asymmetry introduced by a varying CoFeB thickness. In these devices, an in-plane current can generate a field-like torque and its corresponding effective magnetic field (HzFL) is out-of-plane, which can deterministically switch perpendicular magnetization at zero magnetic field. Experimental results indicate that the method used for breaking lateral structural symmetry greatly affects the resulting field-like torque, and that the gradient of perpendicular anisotropy, resulting from the CoFeB thickness variation, is not by itself sufficient to give rise to the current-induced HzFL. Analysis of the oxidation gradient at the CoFeB/TaOx interface indicates that the oxidation gradient may play a more important role than the gradient of magnetic anisotropy for the generation of HzFL. For practical applications, the demonstration of perpendicular magnetization switching in Ta/CoFeB(wedge)/MgO/TaOx devices potentially allows for using MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions for readout in three-terminal memory devices without the need for external magnetic fields.

We study the effect of the oxide layer on current-induced perpendicular magnetization switching properties in HfjCoFeBjMgO and HfjCoFeBjTaO x tri-layers. The studied structures exhibit broken in-plane inversion symmetry due to a wedged CoFeB layer, resulting in a field-like spin-orbit torque (SOT), which can be quantified by a perpendicular (out-of-plane) effective magnetic field. A clear difference in the magnitude of this effective magnetic field (H FL z) was observed between these two structures. In particular, while the current-driven deterministic perpendicular magnetic switching was observed at zero magnetic bias field in HfjCoFeBjMgO, an external magnetic field is necessary to switch the CoFeB layer deterministically in HfjCoFeBjTaO x. Based on the experimental results, the SOT magnitude (H FL z per current density) in HfjCoFeBjMgO (À14.12 Oe/10 7 A cm À2) was found to be almost 13Â larger than that in HfjCoFeBjTaO x (À1.05 Oe/10 7 A cm À2). The CoFeB thickness dependence of the magnetic switching behavior, and the resulting H FL z generated by in-plane currents are also investigated in this work. V

We study voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) and other magnetic properties in annealed MojCoFeBjMgO layered structures. The interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) is observed to increase with annealing over the studied temperature range, and a VCMA coefficient of about 40 fJ/V-m is sustained after annealing at temperatures as high as 430 C. Ab initio electronic structure calculations of interfacial PMA as a function of strain further show that strain relaxation may lead to the increase of interfacial PMA at higher annealing temperatures. Measurements also show that there is no significant VCMA and interfacial PMA dependence on the CoFeB thickness over the studied range, which illustrates the interfacial origin of the anisotropy and its voltage dependence, i.e., the VCMA effect. The high thermal annealing stability of MojCoFeBjMgO structures makes them compatible with advanced CMOS back-end-of-line processes, and will be important for integration of magnetoelectric random access memory into on-chip embedded applications. V

We study the heavy metal layer thickness dependence of the current-induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) in perpendicularly magnetized Hf|CoFeB|MgO multilayer structures. The damping-like (DL) current-induced SOT is determined by vector anomalous Hall effect measurements. A non-monotonic behavior in the DL-SOT is found as a function of the thickness of the heavy-metal layer. The sign of the DL-SOT changes with increasing the thickness of the Hf layer in the trilayer structure. As a result, in the current-driven magnetization switching, the preferred direction of switching for a given current direction changes when the Hf thickness is increased above ∼7 nm. Although there might be a couple of reasons for this unexpected behavior in DL-SOT, such as the roughness in the interfaces and/or impurity based electric potential in the heavy metal, one can deduce a roughness dependence sign reversal in DL-SOT in our trilayer structure.

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