Current-Induced Domain Wall Motion and Tilting in Perpendicularly Magnetized Racetracks

Dong Li, Baoshan Cui, Jijun Yun, Minzhang Chen, Xiaobin Guo, Kai Wu, Xu Zhang, Yupei Wang, Jian Mao, Yalu Zuo, Jianbo Wang, Li Xi
2018 Nanoscale Research Letters  
The influence of C insertion on Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) as well as current-induced domain wall (DW) motion (CIDWM) and tilting in Pt/Co/Ta racetracks is investigated via a magneto-optical Kerr microscope. The similar DMI strength for Pt/Co/Ta and Pt/Co/C/Ta samples reveals that DMI mainly comes from the Pt/Co interface. Fast DW velocity around tens of m/s with current density around several MA/cm 2 is observed in Pt/Co/Ta. However, it needs double times larger current density to
more » ... reach the same magnitude in Pt/Co/C/Ta, indicating DW velocity is related to the spin-orbit torque efficiency and pinning potential barrier. Moreover, in CIDWM, DW velocity is around 10 3 times larger than that in field-induced DW motion (FIDWM) with current-generated effective field keeping the same magnitude as applied magnetic field, revealing that the current-generated Joule heating has an influence on DW motion. Interestingly, current-induced DW tilting phenomenon is observed, while this phenomenon is absent in FIDWM, demonstrating that the current-generated Oersted field may also play an essential role in DW tilting. These findings could provide some designing prospects to drive DW motion in SOT-based racetrack memories.
doi:10.1186/s11671-018-2655-6 pmid:30112694 fatcat:en7gvgy5qvaqfmrehxe7itensq