Monolayer WSe2 induced giant enhancement in the spin Hall efficiency of Tantalum

Abstract

Spin Orbit Torque Magnetic RAM (SOT-MRAM) is emerging as a promising memory technology owing to its high endurance, reliability and speed. A critical factor for its success is the development of materials that exhibit efficient conversion of charge current to spin current, characterized by their spin Hall efficiency. In this work, it is experimentally demonstrated that the spin Hall efficiency of the industrially relevant ultra-thin Ta can be enhanced by more than 25× when a monolayer (ML) WSe2 is inserted as an underlayer. The enhancement is attributed to spin absorption at the Ta/WSe2 interface, suggested by harmonic Hall measurements. The presented hybrid spin Hall stack with a 2D WSe2 underlayer has a total body thickness of less than 2 nm and exhibits greatly enhanced spin Hall efficiency, which makes this hybrid a promising candidate for energy efficient SOT-MRAM.