Current-induced spin-orbit torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems

The field of spintronics, that is, the use of spin-charge coupling in solid-state devices, is both of fundamental interest and of great promise for practical applications, resistive random access memory being a prime example. Recently the transfer of orbital angular momentum to the spin system in materials with a strong spin-orbit coupling in conjunction with a broken spatial inversion symmetry has emerged as a particularly promising further development of this idea. This review discusses the theoretical and experimental aspects of such spin-orbit torques induced by electrical currents.