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Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Visualizing Uniaxial-strain Manipulation of Antiferromagnetic Domains in Fe1+YTe Using a Spin-polarized Scanning Tunneling Microscope
Published on: March 24, 2019
Ab initio studies of the spin-transfer torque in magnetic tunnel junctions
Christian Heiliger1, M D Stiles
1Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-6202, USA. christian.heiliger@nist.gov
Abstract:
We calculate the spin-transfer torque in Fe/MgO/Fe tunnel junctions and compare the results with those for all-metallic junctions. The spin-transfer torque is interfacial due to the half-metallic nature of the Fe Delta1 states. For samples with typical interfacial roughness, the in-plane torque varies linearly with bias and the out-of-plane torque varies quadratically, both in quantitative agreement with experiment. For ideal samples, we predict that the out-of-plane component of the torque varies linearly with bias and oscillates as a function of the ferromagnetic layer thickness.
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