Magnified Damping Under Rashba Spin–Orbit Coupling

The spin–orbit coupling spin torque consists of the field-like [S. G. Tan et al., arXiv:0705.3502 (2007).] and the damping-like terms [H. Kurebayashi et al., Nat. Nanotechnol. 9, 211 (2014).] that have been widely studied for applications in magnetic memory. We focus, in this paper, not on the spin–orbit effect producing the above spin torques, but on its magnifying the damping constant of all field-like spin torques. As first-order precession leads to second-order damping, the Rashba constant is naturally co-opted, producing a magnified field-like damping effect. The Landau–Liftshitz–Gilbert equations are written separately for the local magnetization and the itinerant spin, allowing the progression of magnetization to be self-consistently locked to the spin.