0000000000519078
AUTHOR
Tenghua Gao
Orbital Rashba effect in a surface-oxidized Cu film
Recent experimental observation of an unexpectedly large current-induced spin-orbit torque in surface oxidized Cu on top of a ferromagnet pointed to a possibly prominent role of the orbital Rashba effect (ORE) in this system. Here, we use first principles methods to investigate the ORE in a system of oxygen monolayer deposited on top of a Cu(111) film. We show that surface oxidization of the Cu film leads to a gigantic enhancement of the ORE near the Fermi energy. The resulting chiral orbital texture in the momentum space is exceptionally strong, reaching as much as $\ensuremath{\sim}0.5\ensuremath{\hbar}$ in magnitude. We find that resonant hybridization between O $p$ states and Cu $d$ sta…
Observation of long-range orbital transport and giant orbital torque
AbstractModern spintronics relies on the generation of spin currents through spin-orbit coupling. The spin-current generation has been believed to be triggered by current-induced orbital dynamics, which governs the angular momentum transfer from the lattice to the electrons in solids. The fundamental role of the orbital response in the angular momentum dynamics suggests the importance of the orbital counterpart of spin currents: orbital currents. However, evidence for its existence has been elusive. Here, we demonstrate the generation of giant orbital currents and uncover fundamental features of the orbital response. We experimentally and theoretically show that orbital currents propagate o…