Spin-orbit torque (SOT) writer with topological insulator materials

A magnetic head, comprising:

• a main pole;
• a shield;
• and
• a spintronic device disposed between the main pole and the shield, wherein the spintronic device includes:
• a buffer layer disposed over the main pole, wherein the buffer layer comprises materials selected from the group consisting of Group B, Group C, Group D, Group E, Group F, Group G, or Group H, wherein:
• Group B comprises face centered cubic (FCC) oxide materials;
• Group C comprises materials that can be deposited as amorphous to nanocrystalline thin films depending upon deposition conditions with a resistivity of greater than 100 micro ohm-cm;
• Group D comprises nonmagnetic Heusler materials including iron vanadium aluminum (Fe2VAl), chromium cobalt aluminum (Cr2CoAl), cobalt titanium antimony (CoTiSb), manganese vanadium silicon (Mn2VSi), vanadium aluminum (V2Al), manganese cobalt vanadium aluminum ([Mn0.5Co0.5]2VAl), manganese cobalt vanadium silicon ([Mn0.75Co0.25]2VSi), cobalt manganese niobium aluminum (CoMnNbAl), cobalt zirconium iron aluminum (CoZrFeAl), and titanium manganese aluminum (Ti2MnAl);
• Group E comprises crystalline high polarization layers using magnetic alloys or Heusler alloys that have large spin polarizations and do not readily mix with a spin Hall layer;
• Group F comprises amorphous nonmagnetic high resistive electrical shunt block layers that do not promote a strong (012) crystalline texture or crystalline growth of doped bismuth antimony (BiSbX), where X is a dopant;
• Group G comprises any metal amorphous or ceramic amorphous material with a nearest neighbor x-ray diffraction peak in a 2.19 Å to 2.02 Å d-spacing range, where a d-spacing range is an interplanar distance;
• Group H comprises high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) materials that can be amorphous or crystalline materials;
• a spin Hall layer disposed over the buffer layer, wherein the spin Hall layer comprises undoped bismuth antimony (BiSb) or doped BiSbX where X is a dopant;
• and
• an interlayer disposed over the spin Hall layer, wherein the interlayer comprises materials selected from the group consisting of Groups B, C, D, E, F, G, and H.