  Recent observations of current-induced magnetization switching at
ferromagnet/normal-conductor interfaces have important consequences for future
magnetic memory technology. In one interpretation, the switching originates
from carriers with spin-dependent scattering giving rise to a relativistic
anti-damping spin-orbit torque (SOT) in structures with broken space-inversion
symmetry. The alternative interpretation combines the relativistic spin Hall
effect (SHE), making the normal-conductor an injector of a spin-current, with
the non-relativistic spin-transfer torque (STT) in the ferromagnet. Remarkably,
the SHE in these experiments originates from the Berry phase effect in the band
structure of a clean crystal and the anti-damping STT is also based on a
disorder-independent transfer of spin from carriers to magnetization. Here we
report the observation of an anti-damping SOT stemming from an analogous Berry
phase effect to the SHE. The SOT alone can therefore induce magnetization
dynamics based on a scattering-independent principle. The ferromagnetic
semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As we use has a broken space-inversion symmetry in the
crystal. This allows us to consider a bare ferromagnetic element which
eliminates by design any SHE related contribution to the spin torque. We
provide an intuitive picture of the Berry phase origin of the anti-damping SOT
and a microscopic modeling of measured data.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics