title: Electric field control of deterministic current-induced magnetization switching in a hybrid ferromagnetic/ferroelectric structure.
abstract: All-electrical and programmable manipulations of ferromagnetic bits are highly pursued for the aim of high integration and low energy consumption in modern information technology. Methods based on the spin-orbit torque switching in heavy metal/ferromagnet structures have been proposed with magnetic field, and are heading toward deterministic switching without external magnetic field. Here we demonstrate that an in-plane effective magnetic field can be induced by an electric field without breaking the symmetry of the structure of the thin film, and realize the deterministic magnetization switching in a hybrid ferromagnetic/ferroelectric structure with Pt/Co/Ni/Co/Pt layers on PMN-PT substrate. The effective magnetic field can be reversed by changing the direction of the applied electric field on the PMN-PT substrate, which fully replaces the controllability function of the external magnetic field. The electric field is found to generate an additional spin-orbit torque on the CoNiCo magnets, which is confirmed by macrospin calculations and micromagnetic simulations.
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Kaiming
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Meiyin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, School of Sciences, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China.
authors.forename: Hailang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ju
authors.affiliation: ICAC, Institute of Microelectronics of CAS, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
authors.forename: Sumei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, School of Sciences, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China.
authors.forename: Baohe
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.
authors.forename: Kevin William
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Edmonds
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0477-6407
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Bao
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, School of Sciences, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China.
authors.forename: Shuai
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Houzhi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, CAS, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Kaiyou
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang