Quantifying the large contribution from orbital Rashba-Edelstein effect to the effective damping-like torque on magnetization

Abstract

The generation of large spin currents, and the associated spin torques, which are at the heart of modern spintronics, has long been achieved by charge-to-spin conversion mechanisms, i.e., the spin Hall effect and/or the Rashba-Edelstein effect, intrinsically linked to strong spin-orbit coupling. Recently, a novel path has been predicted and observed for achieving significant current-induced torques originating from light elements, hence possessing weak spin-orbit interaction. These findings point out to the potential involvement of the orbital counterpart of electrons, namely the orbital Hall and orbital Rashba-Edelstein effects. In this study, we aim at quantifying these orbital-related contributions to the effective torques acting on a thin Co layer in different systems. First, we demonstrate in Pt|Co|Cu|AlOx stacking a comparable torque strength coming from the conversion due to the orbital Rashba-Edelstein effect at the Cu|AlOx interface and the one from the effective spin Hall effect in the bottom Pt|Co system. Second, in order to amplify the orbital-to-spin conversion, we investigate the impact of an intermediate Pt layer in Co|Pt|Cu|CuOx. From the Pt thickness dependence of the effective torques determined by harmonic Hall measurements complemented by spin Hall magneto-resistance and THz spectroscopy experiments, we demonstrate that a large orbital Rashba-Edelstein effect is present at the Cu|CuOx interface, leading to a twofold enhancement of the net torques on Co for the optimal Pt thickness. Our findings not only demonstrate the crucial role that orbital currents can play in low-dimensional systems with weak spin-orbit coupling but also reveal that they enable more energy efficient manipulation of magnetization in spintronic devices.