Speaker: Professor Aurelien Manchon
Affiliation: Department of Physics, Aix-Marseille University at the Interdisciplinary Center for Nanoscience of Marseille (CINaM)
Host: Associate Professor Chen Jingsheng (National University of Singapore)
Abstract Details: 

Two-dimensional magnets based on van der Waals materials are currently fostering great expectations for the advancement of spin-orbitronics, which aims to exploit the spin-orbit coupling in non-centrosymmetric magnetic heterostructures to enable current-driven magnetic torques and stabilize homochiral magnetic textures. Van der Waals magnets are particularly appealing for this purpose as their properties can be tuned by surface engineering at the atomic level.

In this talk, Prof Manchon will present their investigation of the spin-orbitronics properties of selected highly promising van der Waals candidates, both in pristine and Janus configurations, from first principles and effective tight-binding models. He will first discuss the spin-orbit torque that emerges from inversion symmetry breaking in magnetic transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers [1] and demonstrate that sizable torques can be obtained, whose magnitude is controlled by the electric dipole due to the chalcogen elements.

Most importantly, Prof Manchon will show the existence of a unique spin-orbit torque component that allows for field-free current-driven switching, of highest interest for applications. Then, he will discuss the nature of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in these systems, and how they can stabilize magnetic skyrmions, but also magnetic bimerons depending on the magnetic anisotropy properties [2]. Finally, he will discuss the spin-orbitronics properties of Fe3Ge2Te2 and show that in spite of its high symmetry, its inherent mirror symmetry breaking enables the onset of an in-plane Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction that can stabilize planar chiral textures [3].

[1] Smaili et al., arXiv:2007.07579
[2] Laref et al., arXiv:2011.07813
[3] Laref et al., Physical Review B 102, 060402(R) (2020)

About The Speaker: 

Aurelien Manchon is a Professor of Physics at Aix-Marseille University at the Interdisciplinary Center for Nanoscience of Marseille (CINaM). His research focuses on the field of theoretical spintronics and aims at identifying novel mechanisms that can be used to operate spin-based devices. His research interest spans from spin-orbit coupled transport to chiral magnetism, antiferromagnets and ultrafast spin dynamics. Before Aix-Marseille University, he was an Assistant (2009-2015), and an Associate Professor (2015-2019) of Materials Science and Engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), in Saudi Arabia. He joined KAUST in 2009 after a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Missouri-Columbia and University of Arizona-Tuscon. He graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France in 2004 and earned his PhD in Physics in 2007 from University Joseph Fourier and CEA/SPINTEC laboratory in France.

Discussion moderators : Assoc Prof Chen Jingsheng (Host, NUS), Asst Prof Anjan Soumyanarayanan (NUS), Prof Shen Lei (NUS)

This webinar is over. You may watch the recorded video in our YouTube page at https://youtu.be/H3liv-Q1qN4

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