Efficient field-free magnetization switching through orbital-current-enhanced magnon torque.
6 affiliations
- 1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
- 2Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
- 3Institute of Materials Research & Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore.
- 4Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
- 5Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
- 6Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. [email protected].
Abstract
Efficient control of magnetization is essential for the development of spintronics devices. Various mechanisms, including spin currents, orbital currents, and magnon currents, have been explored to achieve magnetization switching. Among them, magnon currents facilitate low-dissipation transport of spin angular momentum, potentially mitigating energy dissipation associated with Ohmic loss. So far, the magnon currents excited by spin currents have been well-established, while the role of orbital currents in magnon excitation remains much less explored. Here, we report efficient magnon torques in a RuO₂/NiO/ferromagnet system, where spin and orbital currents generated by RuO₂ jointly excite magnon currents in NiO. Notably, the magnon currents exhibit both in-plane and out-of-plane polarizations, manifesting a high in-plane spin Hall conductivity σs,y = 143.8 × 10³ ℏ /2e Ω⁻¹ m⁻¹ and out-of-plane spin Hall conductivity σs,z = 8.3 × 10³ ℏ /2e Ω⁻¹ m⁻¹, which enables field-free switching of perpendicular magnetization with low-power consumption. Our findings reveal that spin and orbital currents in RuO₂ can jointly excite magnon currents in NiO, enabling efficient field-free switching of perpendicular magnetization and paving the way to low-power spintronic devices.
Related
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BibTeX
@article{shi2026efficient,
title = {{Efficient field-free magnetization switching through orbital-current-enhanced magnon torque.}},
author = {Guoyi Shi and Hua Bai and Chenhui Zhang and Lei Han and Jiankun Dai and Hui Ru Tan and Meining Du and Yuchen Pu and Wenqing He and Zhaohui Li and Anjan Soumyanarayanan and Cheng Song and Mehrdad Elyasi and Hyunsoo Yang},
journal = {Nature communications},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-77984-1},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42957719},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Efficient field-free magnetization switching through orbital-current-enhanced magnon torque.
AU - Guoyi Shi
AU - Hua Bai
AU - Chenhui Zhang
AU - Lei Han
AU - Jiankun Dai
AU - Hui Ru Tan
AU - Meining Du
AU - Yuchen Pu
AU - Wenqing He
AU - Zhaohui Li
AU - Anjan Soumyanarayanan
AU - Cheng Song
AU - Mehrdad Elyasi
AU - Hyunsoo Yang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
JO - Nature communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-77984-1
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42957719
AB - Efficient control of magnetization is essential for the development of spintronics devices. Various mechanisms, including spin currents, orbital currents, and magnon currents, have been explored to achieve magnetization switching. Among them, magnon currents facilitate low-dissipation transport of spin angular momentum, potentially mitigating energy dissipation associated with Ohmic loss. So far, the magnon currents excited by spin currents have been well-established, while the role of orbital currents in magnon excitation remains much less explored. Here, we report efficient magnon torques in a RuO₂/NiO/ferromagnet system, where spin and orbital currents generated by RuO₂ jointly excite magnon currents in NiO. Notably, the magnon currents exhibit both in-plane and out-of-plane polarizations, manifesting a high in-plane spin Hall conductivity σs,y = 143.8 × 10³ ℏ /2e Ω⁻¹ m⁻¹ and out-of-plane spin Hall conductivity σs,z = 8.3 × 10³ ℏ /2e Ω⁻¹ m⁻¹, which enables field-free switching of perpendicular magnetization with low-power consumption. Our findings reveal that spin and orbital currents in RuO₂ can jointly excite magnon currents in NiO, enabling efficient field-free switching of perpendicular magnetization and paving the way to low-power spintronic devices.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -