Orbital Torque in Rare-Earth Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets

Orbital currents have recently emerged as a promising tool to achieve electrical control of the magnetization in thin-film ferromagnets. Efficient orbital-to-spin conversion is required in order to torque the magnetization. Here, we show that the injection of an orbital current in a ferrimagnetic GdₘCo₁₀₀-ₘ alloy generates strong orbital torques whose sign and magnitude can be tuned by changing the Gd content and temperature. The effective spin-orbital Hall angle reaches up to -0. 25 in a GdₘCo₁₀₀-ₘ/CuOₗ bilayer compared to +0. 03 in Co/CuOₗ and +0. 13 in GdₘCo₁₀₀-ₘ/Pt. This behavior is attributed to the local orbital-to-spin conversion taking place at the Gd sites, which is about 5 times stronger and of the opposite sign relative to Co. Furthermore, we observe a manyfold increase in the net orbital torque at low temperature, which we attribute to the improved conversion efficiency following the magnetic ordering of the Gd and Co sublattices.