Spin–orbit torque driven perpendicular magnetization switching in Re/CoFeB/MgO with high thermal stability

Writing using spin–orbit torque (SOT) has been widely investigated in the field of magnetic random-access memory (MRAM). Heavy metal (HM)/CoFeB/MgO is the core of this SOT-MRAM structure. The heterostructure consisting of Ta as the spin current source and CoFeB/MgO as the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) material is the most researched structure, owing to its high tunneling magnetoresistance ratio. However, Ta is difficult to integrate into the CMOS process due to its poor thermal stability against annealing at temperatures greater than 350 °C. Currently, β-tungsten (W) is the only HM with the CoFeB/MgO system, which can provide both thermal stability and SOT switching. Nevertheless, to achieve the high resistive β phase of W is a challenging task. Here, we report another material rhenium (Re) capable of providing thermally stable PMA up to temperature 425 °C with a perpendicular anisotropic field greater than 5000 Oe; Re possesses a spin hall angle (ϴSH) of 0.065 ± 0.003, and SOT switching can be achieved with a current density around 1.36 × 1011 A/m2. Our findings pave a new avenue for the material design of perpendicular SOT-based MRAM.