SrRuO3 films have large uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy tilted out of the film plane. When cooled in zero field from above the Curie temperature (∼ 150 K), a magnetic domain structure emerges in the form of 200 nm wide stripes oriented along the in-plane projection of the magnetic easy axis. We measure the interface resistance of the magnetic domain walls by applying a magnetic field perpendicular to the easy axis in the domain wall plane and perpendicular to this plane and observe hysteretic behavior. Micromagnetic simulations of the results indicate that depending on the direction in which the field is applied the domain wall type (Bloch or Néel) and chirality can be tuned.
Spin-Orbit Torque (SOT) in Heavy Metal/Ferromagnet (HM/FM) structures provides an important tool to control the magnetization of FMs and has been an area of interest for memory and logic implementation. Spin transfer torque on the FM in such structures is attributed to two sources: (1) the Spin Hall effect in the HM and (2) the Rashba-effect at the HM/FM interface. In this work, we study the SOT in a Pt/[Co,Ni] structure and compare its strength with the SOT in a Pt/Cu/[Co,Ni] structure where copper, a metal with a low spin-orbit interaction, is inserted between the Pt (HM) layer and the [Co,Ni] (FM) layer. We use an AC harmonic measurement technique to measure the strength of the SOT on the magnetic thin-film layer. Our measurements show that a significant SOT is exerted on the magnetization even after a 6 nm thick copper layer is inserted between the HM and the FM. Also, we find that this torque can be used to switch a patterned magnetic layer in the presence of an external magnetic field.
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