Diffuse phonon scattering strongly affects the phonon transport through a disordered interface. The often-used diffuse mismatch model assumes that phonons lose memory of their origin after being scattered by the interface. Using mode-resolved atomic Greens function simulation, we demonstrate that diffuse phonon scattering by a single disordered interface cannot make a phonon lose its memory and thus the applicability of diffusive mismatch model is limited. An analytical expression for diffuse scattering probability based on the continuum approximation is also derived and shown to work reasonably well at low frequencies.
We report a systematic study on Edelstein magnetoresistance (Edelstein MR) in Co25Fe75/Cu/Bi2O3 heterostructures with a strong spin-orbit interaction at the Cu/Bi2O3 interface. We succeed in observing a significant dependence of the Edelstein MR on both Cu layer thickness and temperature, and also develop a general analytical model considering distinct bulk and interface contributions on spin relaxation. Our analysis, based on the above model, quantitatively illustrates a unique property of the spin transport near the Rashba interface, revealing a prominent role of the spin relaxation process by determining the ratios of the spin relaxation inside and outside the interface. We further find the characteristic spin transport is unaffected by temperature. Our results provide an essential tool for exploring the transport in a system with spin-momentum-locked two-dimensional states.
Recent experiments have shown surprisingly large thermal time constants in suspended graphene ranging from 10 to 100 ns in drums with a diameter ranging from 2 to 7 microns. The large time constants and their scaling with diameter points towards a thermal resistance at the edge of the drum. However, an explanation of the microscopic origin of this resistance is lacking. Here, we show how phonon scattering at a kink in the graphene, e.g. formed by sidewall adhesion at the edge of the suspended membrane, can cause a large thermal time constant. This kink strongly limits the fraction of flexural phonons that cross the suspended graphene edge, which causes a thermal interface resistance at its boundary. Our model predicts thermal time constants that are of the same order of magnitude as experimental data, and shows a similar dependence on the circumference. Furthermore, the model predicts the relative in-plane and out-of-plane phonon contributions to graphenes thermal expansion force, in agreement with experiments. We thus show, that in contrast to conventional thermal (Kapitza) resistance which occurs between two different materials, in 2D materials another type of thermal interface resistance can be geometrically induced in a single material.
We measure the spin-charge interconversion by the spin Hall effect in ferromagnetic/Pt nanodevices. The extracted effective spin Hall angles (SHAs) of Pt evolve drastically with the ferromagnetic (FM) materials (CoFe, Co, and NiFe), when assuming transparent interfaces and a bulk origin of the spin injection/detection by the FM elements. By carefully measuring the interface resistance, we show that it is quite large and cannot be neglected. We then evidence that the spin injection/detection at the FM/Pt interfaces are dominated by the spin polarization of the interfaces. We show that interfacial asymmetric spin scattering becomes the driving mechanism of the spin injection in our samples.
The understanding and modeling of inelastic scattering of thermal phonons at a solid/solid interface remain an open question. We present a fully quantum theoretical scheme to quantify the effect of anharmonic phonon-phonon scattering at an interface via non-equilibrium Greens function (NEGF) formalism. Based on the real-space scattering rate matrix, a decomposition of the interfacial spectral energy exchange is made into contributions from local and non-local anharmonic interactions, of which the former is shown to be predominant for high-frequency phonons whereas both are important for low-frequency phonons. The anharmonic decay of interfacial phonon modes is revealed to play a crucial role in bridging the bulk modes across the interface. The overall quantitative contribution of anharmonicity to thermal boundary conductance is found to be moderate. The present work promotes a deeper understanding of heat transport at the interface and an intuitive interpretation of anharmonic phonon NEGF formalism.
Coupled micro- and nanomechanical oscillators are of fundamental and technical interest for emerging quantum technologies. Upon interfacing with long-lived solid-state spins, the coherent manipulation of the quantum hybrid system becomes possible even at ambient conditions. While, the ability of these systems to act as a quantum bus inducing long-range spin-spin interactions has been known, the possibility to coherently couple electron/nuclear spins to the common modes of multiple oscillators and map their mechanical motion to spin-polarization has not been experimentally demonstrated. We here report experiments on interfacing spins to the common modes of a coupled cantilever system, and show their correlation by translating ultra-low forces induced by radiation from one oscillator to a distant spin. Further, we analyze the coherent spin-spin coupling induced by the common modes and estimate the entanglement generation among distant spins.