Perpendicular switching of a ferromagnet induced by spin torques is crucial for building high-density spin-based memory and logic devices, where out-of-plane spin polarization (${\sigma }_z$) has become a long-sought-after goal for deterministic switching without assisted magnetic fields. Here, we report the observation of ${\sigma }_z$ and resultant fieldfree perpendicular switching in a single ferromagnet without any spin torque generation layers, where ${\sigma }_z$ is achieved through the self-generated spin polarization in the ferromagnet that is engineered by the Néel order of an adjacent antiferromagnetic insulator. We further demonstrated that ${\sigma }_z$ emerges when the self-generated spin polarization is collinear with the Néel vector, where the spin current is reflected to the ferromagnet, along with rotated spin polarization toward the out-of-plane direction to induce ${\sigma }_z$. Since no current is shunted by the antiferromagnetic insulators and the Néel order does not rely on single-crystalline materials, these results may provide a CMOS-compatible solution for constructing energy-efficient fieldfree spintronic devices.

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• Magnetization switching
• Spin polarization
• Spin torque
• Antiferromagnets
• Devices for digital logic, storage & processing
• Ferromagnets
• Magnetic insulators
• Magnetic multilayers