No Arabic abstract
Investigation of the spin Hall effect in gold has triggered increasing interest over the past decade, since gold combines the properties of a large bulk spin diffusion length and strong interfacial spin-orbit coupling. However, discrepancies between the values of the spin Hall angle of gold reported in the literature have brought into question the microscopic origin of the spin Hall effect in Au. Here, we investigate the thickness dependence of the spin-charge conversion efficiency in single Au films and ultrathin Au/Si multilayers by non-local transport and spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements. We show that the spin-charge conversion efficiency is strongly enhanced in ultrathin Au/Si multilayers, reaching exceedingly large values of 0.99 +/- 0.34 when the thickness of the individual Au layers is scaled down to 2 nm. These findings reveal the coexistence of a strong interfacial spin-orbit coupling effect which becomes dominant in ultrathin Au, and bulk spin Hall effect with a relatively low bulk spin Hall angle of 0.012 +/- 0.005. Our experimental results suggest the key role of the Rashba-Edelstein effect in the spin-to-charge conversion in ultrathin Au.
Two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) formed at the interface between SrTiO3 (STO) and LaAlO3 (LAO) insulating layer is supposed to possess strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling. To date, the inverse Edelstein effect (i.e. spin-to-charge conversion) in the 2DEG layer is reported. However, the direct effect of charge-to-spin conversion, an essential ingredient for spintronic devices in a current induced spin-orbit torque scheme, has not been demonstrated yet. Here we show, for the first time, a highly efficient spin generation with the efficiency of ~6.3 in the STO/LAO/CoFeB structure at room temperature by using spin torque ferromagnetic resonance. In addition, we suggest that the spin transmission through the LAO layer at high temperature range is attributed to the inelastic tunneling via localized states in the LAO band gap. Our findings may lead to potential applications in the oxide insulator based spintronic devices.
Conversion of pure spin current to charge current in single-layer graphene (SLG) is investigated by using spin pumping. Large-area SLG grown by chemical vapor deposition is used for the conversion. Efficient spin accumulation in SLG by spin pumping enables observing an electromotive force produced by the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) of SLG. The spin Hall angle of SLG is estimated to be 6.1*10-7. The observed ISHE in SLG is ascribed to its non-negligible spin-orbit interaction in SLG.
We present results of the analysis of Brillouin Light Scattering (BLS) measurements of spin waves performed on ultrathin single and multirepeat CoFeB layers with adjacent heavy metal layers. From a detailed study of the spin-wave dispersion relation, we independently extract the Heisenberg exchange interaction (also referred to as symmetric exchange interaction), the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI, also referred to as antisymmetric exchange interaction), and the anisotropy field. We find a large DMI in CoFeB thin films adjacent to a Pt layer and nearly vanishing DMI for CoFeB films adjacent to a W layer. Furthermore, the residual influence of the dipolar interaction on the dispersion relation and on the evaluation of the Heisenberg exchange parameter is demonstrated. In addition, an experimental analysis of the DMI on the spin-wave lifetime is presented. All these parameters play a crucial role in designing skyrmionic or spin-orbitronic devices.
The spin-momentum locking at the Dirac surface state of a topological insulator (TI) offers a distinct possibility of a highly efficient charge-to-spin current (C-S) conversion compared with spin Hall effects in conventional paramagnetic metals. For the development of TI-based spin current devices, it is essential to evaluate its conversion efficiency quantitatively as a function of the Fermi level EF position. Here we exemplify a coefficient of qICS to characterize the interface C-S conversion effect by using spin torque ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR) for (Bi1-xSbx)2Te3 thin films whose EF is tuned across the band gap. In bulk insulating conditions, interface C-S conversion effect via Dirac surface state is evaluated as nearly constant large values of qICS, reflecting that the qICS is inversely proportional to the Fermi velocity vF that is almost constant. However, when EF traverses through the Dirac point, the qICS is remarkably suppressed possibly due to the degeneracy of surface spins or instability of helical spin structure. These results demonstrate that the fine tuning of the EF in TI based heterostructures is critical to maximizing the efficiency using the spin-momentum locking mechanism.
Optical control of electronic spins is the basis for ultrafast spintronics: circularly polarized light in combination with spin-orbit coupling of the electronic states allows for spin manipulation in condensed matter. However, the conventional approach is limited to spin orientation along one particular orientation that is dictated by the direction of photon propagation. Plasmonics opens new capabilities, allowing one to tailor the light polarization at the nanoscale. Here, we demonstrate ultrafast optical excitation of electron spin on femtosecond time scales via plasmon to exciton spin conversion. By time-resolving the THz spin dynamics in a hybrid (Cd,Mn)Te quantum well structure covered with a metallic grating, we unambiguously determine the orientation of the photoexcited electron spins which is locked to the propagation direction of surface plasmon-polaritons. Using the spin of the incident photons as additional degree of freedom, one can orient the photoexcited electron spin at will in a two-dimensional plane.