Challenges in orbital current-driven domain wall motion in light metal/ferrimagnet heterostructures

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Abstract
Recent advances in spintronics suggest that orbital Hall currents generated by charge injection in light metals can provide nonequilibrium angular momentum without relying on strong spin–orbit coupling (SOC). Here, we examine whether such orbital currents can drive domain wall (DW) motion in an amorphous ferrimagnetic alloy, Gd25(Fe9Co1)75 (GFC), where the rare-earth sublattice offers strong SOC for orbital-to-spin conversion. We compare three representative heterostructures: Pt/GFC as a spin Hall reference, light-metal (Mn or Ti)/GFC for direct orbital-current injection, and light-metal/Pt/GFC incorporating an ultrathin Pt layer for orbital-to-spin conversion. Whereas Pt/GFC exhibits robust and reproducible spin–orbit-torque-driven DW motion, no current-driven DW motion is detected in Mn/GFC or Ti/GFC. Second-harmonic Hall measurements nevertheless reveal finite damping-like torques in both Mn/GFC and Ti/GFC, demonstrating that angular-momentum transfer into GFC does occur but is far weaker than in Pt/GFC. Inserting a 1 nm-thick Pt conversion layer strongly enhances the damping-like torque and restores DW motion. Thickness-dependent analysis further shows that DW mobility and depinning thresholds correlate with the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction and domain-wall width, highlighting weak torque conversion and insufficient interfacial stabilization of chiral DWs as key challenges for orbital-driven DW motion in light-metal/ferrimagnet heterostructures.
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Funding Information
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (10004526)
  • ETH Zürich Foundation (Career Seed Award 24-1 SEED-008)

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