Spin torque from spin current applied to a nanoscale region of a ferromagnet can act as negative magnetic damping and thereby excite self-oscillations of its magnetization. In contrast, spin torque uniformly applied to the magnetization of an extended ferromagnetic film does not generate self-oscillatory magnetic dynamics but leads to reduction of the saturation magnetization. Here we report studies of the effect of spin torque on a system of intermediate dimensionality-a ferromagnetic nanowire. We observe coherent self-oscillations of magnetization in a ferromagnetic nanowire serving as the active region of a spin torque oscillator driven by spin orbit torques. Our work demonstrates that magnetization selfoscillations can be excited in a one-dimensional magnetic system and that dimensions of the active region of spin torque oscillators can be extended beyond the nanometre length scale.

Spin torque oscillators (STOs) are compact, tunable sources of microwave radiation that serve as a test bed for studies of nonlinear magnetization dynamics at the nanometer length scale. The spin torque in an STO can be created by spin-orbit interaction, but low spectral purity of the microwave signals generated by spin orbit torque oscillators hinders practical applications of these magnetic nanodevices. Here we demonstrate a method for decreasing the phase noise of spin orbit torque oscillators based on Pt/Ni80Fe20 nanowires. We experimentally demonstrate that tapering of the nanowire, which serves as the STO active region, significantly decreases the spectral linewidth of the generated signal. We explain the observed linewidth narrowing in the framework of the Ginzburg-Landau auto-oscillator model. The model reveals that spatial non-uniformity of the spin current density in the tapered nanowire geometry hinders the excitation of higher order spin-wave modes, thus stabilizing the single-mode generation regime. This non-uniformity also generates a restoring force acting on the excited self-oscillatory mode, which reduces thermal fluctuations of the mode spatial position along the wire. Both these effects improve the STO spectral purity.

We demonstrate a technique of broadband spin torque ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR) with magnetic field modulation for measurements of spin wave properties in magnetic nanostructures. This technique gives great improvement in sensitivity over the conventional ST-FMR measurements, and application of this technique to nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) reveals a rich spectrum of standing spin wave eigenmodes. Comparison of the ST-FMR measurements with micromagnetic simulations of the spin wave spectrum allows us to explain the character of low-frequency magnetic excitations in nanoscale MTJs.The following article appeared in Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 172406 (2013) and may be found at http://dx

We report ferromagnetic resonance measurements of magnetic anisotropy and damping in epitaxial La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) and Pt capped LSMO thin films on SrTiO3 (001) substrates. The measurements reveal large negative perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and a weaker uniaxial in-plane anisotropy that are unaffected by the Pt cap. The Gilbert damping of the bare LSMO films is found to be low α = 1.9(1) × 10−3, and two-magnon scattering is determined to be significant and strongly anisotropic. The Pt cap increases the damping by 50% due to spin pumping, which is also directly detected via inverse spin Hall effect in Pt. Our work demonstrates efficient spin transport across the Pt/LSMO interface.

Spin-orbit torques, which utilize spin currents arising from the spin-orbit coupling, offer a novel method for the electrical switching of the magnetization with perpendicular anisotropy. However, the necessity of an external magnetic field to achieve deterministic switching is an obstacle for realizing practical spin-orbit torque devices with all-electric operation. Here, we report field-free spin-orbit torque switching by exploiting the domain-wall motion in an anti-notched microwire with perpendicular anisotropy, which exhibits multidomain states stabilized by the domain-wall surface tension. The combination of spin-orbit torque, Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, and domain-wall surface-tension-induced geometrical pinning allows the deterministic control of the domain wall and offers a novel method to achieve a field-free spin-orbit torque switching. Our work demonstrates the proof of concept of a perpendicular memory cell that can be readily adopted in three-terminal magnetic memory.