We report current-induced domain wall motion (CIDWM) in TaCo20Fe60B20MgO nanowires. Domain walls are observed to move against the electron flow when no magnetic field is applied, while a field along the nanowires strongly affects the domain wall moti
on direction and velocity. A symmetric effect is observed for up-down and down-up domain walls. This indicates the presence of right-handed domain walls, due to a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) with a DMI coefficient D=+0.06 mJ/m2. The positive DMI coefficient is interpreted to be a consequence of boron diffusion into the tantalum buffer layer during annealing. In a PtCo68Fe22B10MgO nanowire CIDWM along the electron flow was observed, corroborating this interpretation. The experimental results are compared to 1D-model simulations including the effects of pinning. This advanced modelling allows us to reproduce the experiment outcomes and reliably extract a spin-Hall angle {theta}SH=-0.11 for Ta in the nanowires, showing the importance of an analysis that goes beyond the currently used model for perfect nanowires.
We demonstrate magnetization switching in out-of-plane magnetized TaCoFeBMgO nanowires by current pulse injection along the nanowires, both with and without a constant and uniform magnetic field collinear to the current direction. We deduce that an e
ffective torque arising from spin-orbit effects in the multilayer drives the switching mechanism. While the generation of a component of the magnetization along the current direction is crucial for the switching to occur, we observe that even without a longitudinal field thermally generated magnetization fluctuations can lead to switching. Analysis using a generalized Neel-Brown model enables key parameters of the thermally induced spin-orbit torques switching process to be estimated, such as the attempt frequency and the effective energy barrier.
