TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the influence of the depinning energy barrier on domain wall motion in perpendicularly magnetized Pt/Co/Cr/Ta multilayers
AU - Cui, Baoshan
AU - Wu, Hao
AU - Chang, Meixia
AU - Yun, Jijun
AU - Zuo, Yalu
AU - Gao, Meizhen
AU - Wang, Kang L.
AU - Xi, Li
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University PCSIRT (No. IRT16R35), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51671098 ), the Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province (No. 17JR5RA210 ) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities ( lzujbky-2015-122 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Domain wall (DW) motion via current induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) and/or a magnetic field in ferromagnet/heavy metal heterostructure has attracted abundant interests due to its potential applications in magnetic memories and logic devices. In this work, we study the influence of the depinning energy barrier on DW motion in the creep regime using the polar magneto-optical Kerr microscopy in the Cr layer decorated Pt/Co/Ta structure. We find that although the SOT efficiency shows a significant enhancement in the Pt/Co/Cr/Ta system, but the current-induced DW motion efficiency still shows an attenuation. We confirm that this unexpected result is caused by the enhanced pinning energy barrier, extracted from the relationship between the cumulative depinning probability (Pd) and the depinning time (t). Moreover, the relationship between Pd and t exhibits preferred exponential distribution, indicating that a single energy barrier governs the depinning behavior in our systems. We also reveal that the energy barrier depends on the interface between the ferromagnet and heavy metal. Our study suggests that the current-induced DW motion efficiency is not only determined by the SOT efficiency, but also the depinning energy barrier.
AB - Domain wall (DW) motion via current induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) and/or a magnetic field in ferromagnet/heavy metal heterostructure has attracted abundant interests due to its potential applications in magnetic memories and logic devices. In this work, we study the influence of the depinning energy barrier on DW motion in the creep regime using the polar magneto-optical Kerr microscopy in the Cr layer decorated Pt/Co/Ta structure. We find that although the SOT efficiency shows a significant enhancement in the Pt/Co/Cr/Ta system, but the current-induced DW motion efficiency still shows an attenuation. We confirm that this unexpected result is caused by the enhanced pinning energy barrier, extracted from the relationship between the cumulative depinning probability (Pd) and the depinning time (t). Moreover, the relationship between Pd and t exhibits preferred exponential distribution, indicating that a single energy barrier governs the depinning behavior in our systems. We also reveal that the energy barrier depends on the interface between the ferromagnet and heavy metal. Our study suggests that the current-induced DW motion efficiency is not only determined by the SOT efficiency, but also the depinning energy barrier.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jmmm.2019.165676
DO - 10.1016/j.jmmm.2019.165676
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070685699
SN - 0304-8853
VL - 493
JO - Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
JF - Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
M1 - 165676
ER -