No Arabic abstract
We have experimentally studied the effects on the spin Hall angle due to systematic addition of Pt into the light metal Cu. We perform spin torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements on Py/CuPt bilayer and find that as the Pt concentration increases, the spin Hall angle of CuPt alloy increases. Moreover, only 28% Pt in CuPt alloy can give rise to a spin Hall angle close to that of Pt. We further extract the spin Hall resistivity of CuPt alloy for different Pt concentrations and find that the contribution of skew scattering is larger for lower Pt concentrations, while the side-jump contribution is larger for higher Pt concentrations. From technological perspective, since the CuPt alloy can sustain high processing temperatures and Cu is the most common metallization element in the Si platform, it would be easier to integrate the CuPt alloy based spintronic devices into existing Si fabrication technology.
We report an experimental study of a gold-tungsten alloy (7% at. W concentration in Au host) displaying remarkable properties for spintronics applications using both magneto-transport in lateral spin valve devices and spin-pumping with inverse spin Hall effect experiments. A very large spin Hall angle of about 10% is consistently found using both techniques with the reliable spin diffusion length of 2 nm estimated by the spin sink experiments in the lateral spin valves. With its chemical stability, high resistivity and small induced damping, this AuW alloy may find applications in the nearest future.
We report electronic structure calculations of an iron impurity in gold host. The spin, orbital and dipole magnetic moments were investigated using the LDA+$U$ correlated band theory. We show that the {em around-mean-field}-LDA+$U$ reproduces the XMCD experimental data well and does not lead to formation of a large orbital moment on the Fe atom. Furthermore, exact diagonalization of the multi-orbital Anderson impurity model with the full Coulomb interaction matrix and the spin-orbit coupling is performed in order to estimate the spin Hall angle. The obtained value $gamma_S approx 0.025$ suggests that there is no giant extrinsic spin Hall effect due to scattering on iron impurities in gold.
Generating pure spin currents via the spin Hall effect in heavy metals has been an active topic of research in the last decade. In order to reduce the energy required to efficiently switch neighbouring ferromagnetic layers for applications, one should not only increase the charge- to-spin conversion efficiency but also decrease the longitudinal resistivity of the heavy metal. In this work, we investigate the spin Hall conductivity in W_{1-x}Ta_{x} / CoFeB / MgO (x = 0 - 0.2) using spin torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements. Alloying W with Ta leads to a factor of two change in both the damping-like effective spin Hall angle (from - 0.15 to - 0.3) and longitudinal resistivity (60 - 120 {mu}W cm). At 11% Ta concentration, a remarkably high spin Hall angle value of - 0.3 is achieved with a low longitudinal resistivity 100 {mu}W cm, which could lead to a very low power consumption for this W-based alloy. This work demonstrates sputter-deposited W-Ta alloys could be a promising material for power-efficient spin current generation.
Spin Hall effects are a collection of relativistic spin-orbit coupling phenomena in which electrical currents can generate transverse spin currents and vice versa. Although first observed only a decade ago, these effects are already ubiquitous within spintronics as standard spin-current generators and detectors. Here we review the experimental and theoretical results that have established this sub-field of spintronics. We focus on the results that have converged to give us a clear understanding of the phenomena and how they have evolved from a qualitative to a more quantitative measurement of spin-currents and their associated spin-accumulation. Within the experimental framework, we review optical, transport, and magnetization-dynamics based measurements and link them to both phenomenological and microscopic theories of the effect. Within the theoretical framework, we review the basic mechanisms in both the extrinsic and intrinsic regime which are linked to the mechanisms present in their closely related phenomenon in ferromagnets, the anomalous Hall effect. We also review the connection to the phenomenological treatment based on spin-diffusion equations applicable to certain regimes, as well as the spin-pumping theory of spin-generation which has proven important in the measurements of the spin Hall angle. We further connect the spin-current generating spin Hall effect to the inverse spin galvanic effect, which often accompanies the SHE, in which an electrical current induces a non-equilibrium spin polarization. These effects share common microscopic origins and can exhibit similar symmetries when present in ferromagnetic/non-magnetic structures through their induced current-driven spin torques. Although we give a short chronological overview, the main body is structured from a pedagogical point of view, focusing on well-established and accepted physics.
We study the extrinsic spin Hall effect induced by Ir impurities in Cu by injecting a pure spin current into a CuIr wire from a lateral spin valve structure. While no spin Hall effect is observed without Ir impurity, the spin Hall resistivity of CuIr increases linearly with the impurity concentration. The spin Hall angle of CuIr, $(2.1 pm 0.6)$% throughout the concentration range between 1% and 12%, is practically independent of temperature. These results represent a clear example of predominant skew scattering extrinsic contribution to the spin Hall effect in a nonmagnetic alloy.