Negligible current-induced torque from the bulk and interface of Al

2026/07/10 by Taiyang Zhang, Lujun Zhu, Zhihao Yan +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/kbqx-c78t

published as Phys. Rev. B 114, L020405 (2026)

arxiv created 2026/07/10 · arxiv updated 2026/08/04

Abstract

The light metal Al was predicted to have strong orbital Hall and Rashba effects from its bulk and interface, respectively. In this letter, we report experimental evidence that neither the bulk nor the interface of the Al contributed a detectable torque on adjacent Co and FePt layers with significant spin Hall effect, spin-orbit coupling, and resistivity mismatch with Al. These results suggest minimal orbital-spin conversion in Al and negligible orbital transport and spin-vorticity torque in Co/Al, Al/Co, and Al/FePt bilayers. Our findings suggest poor generality and/or effectiveness of torque contributions by the orbital Hall effect, the interfacial orbital Rashba effect, and the spin-vorticity coupling.

Citations

• Physical origin of current-induced switching angle shift in magnetic heterostructures
• Quantum Kinetic Anatomy of Electron Angular Momenta Edge Accumulation
• Anatomy of torques from orbital Rashba textures: the case of Co/Al interfaces
• Absence of orbital current torque in Ta/ferromagnet bilayers
• Efficient Magnon Injection and Detection via the Orbital Rashba Edelstein Effect
• Orbital diffusion, polarization and swapping in centrosymmetric metals
• Field free switching through bulk spin-orbit torque in L10-FePt films deposited on vicinal substrates
• Spintronics for neuromorphic computing

Cited by

• Universal scaling of the Anomalous Hall voltage of magnetic layer with the adjacent conducting layer