Time resolved measurements of the switching trajectory of Pt/Co elements induced by spin-orbit torques (1704.06418v1)

Abstract: We report the experimental observation of spin-orbit torque induced switching of perpendicularly magnetized Pt/Co elements in a time resolved stroboscopic experiment based on high resolution Kerr microscopy. Magnetization dynamics is induced by injecting sub-nanosecond current pulses into the bilayer while simultaneously applying static in-plane magnetic bias fields. Highly reproducible homogeneous switching on time scales of several tens of nanoseconds is observed. Our findings can be corroborated using micromagnetic modelling only when including a field-like torque term as well as the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction mediated by finite temperature.