Direct Determination of Large Spin-Torque Nonadiabaticity in Vortex Core Dynamics

We use a pump-probe photoemission electron microscopy technique to image the displacement of vortex cores in Permalloy discs due to the spin-torque effect during current pulse injection. Exploiting the distinctly different symmetries of the spin torques and the Oersted-field torque with respect to the vortex spin structure we determine the torques unambiguously, and we quantify the amplitude of the strongly debated nonadiabatic spin torque. The nonadiabaticity parameter is found to be β = 0:15 +/- 0:07, which is more than an order of magnitude larger than the damping constant α, pointing to strong nonadiabatic transport across the high magnetization gradient vortex spin structures.

Read the viewpoint "the alphabet of spin in nanostructures" by Rolf Allenspach and Philipp Eib