We employ the spin absorption technique in lateral spin valves to extract the spin diffusion length of Permalloy (Py) as a function of temperature and resistivity. A linear dependence of the spin diffusion length with conductivity of Py is observed, evidencing that Elliott-Yafet is the dominant spin relaxation mechanism in Permalloy. Completing the data set with additional data found in literature, we obtain $lambda_{Py}= (0.91pm 0.04) (fOmega m^2)/rho_{Py}$.
We present measurements of pure spin current absorption on lateral spin valves. By varying the width of the absorber we demonstrate that spin current absorption measurements enable to characterize efficiently the spin transport properties of ferromagnetic elements. The analytical model used to describe the measurement takes into account the polarization of the absorber. The analysis of the measurements allows thus determining the polarization and the spin diffusion length of a studied material independently, contrarily to most experiments based on lateral spin valves where those values are entangled. We report the spin transport parameters of some of the most important materials used in spinorbitronics (Co60Fe40, Ni81Fe19, Co, Pt, and Ta), at room and low (10 K) temperatures.
We have succeeded in fully describing dynamic properties of spin current including the different spin absorption mechanism for longitudinal and transverse spins in lateral spin valves, which enables to elucidate intrinsic spin transport and relaxation mechanism in the nonmagnet. The deduced spin lifetimes are found independent of the contact type. From the transit-time distribution of spin current extracted from the Fourier transform in Hanle measurement data, the velocity of the spin current in Ag with Py/Ag Ohmic contact turns out much faster than that expected from the widely used model.
A high reproducibility in the performance of cobalt/copper and permalloy/copper lateral spin valves with transparent contacts is obtained by optimizing the interface quality and the purity of copper. This allows us to study comprehensively the spin injection properties of both ferromagnetic materials, as well as the spin transport properties of copper, which are not affected by the used ferromagnetic material, leading to long spin diffusion lengths. Spin polarizations of permalloy and cobalt are obtained as a function of temperature. Analysis of the temperature dependence of both the spin polarization and conductivity of permalloy using the standard two-channel model for ferromagnetic metals suggests that a correction factor of ~2 is needed for the spin polarization values obtained by lateral spin valve experiments.
The spin absorption process in a ferromagnetic material depends on the spin orientation relativelyto the magnetization. Using a ferromagnet to absorb the pure spin current created within a lateralspin-valve, we evidence and quantify a sizeable orientation dependence of the spin absorption inCo, CoFe and NiFe. These experiments allow determining the spin-mixing conductance, an elusivebut fundamental parameter of the spin-dependent transport. We show that the obtained valuescannot be understood within a model considering only the Larmor, transverse decoherence and spindiffusion lengths, and rather suggest that the spin-mixing conductance is actually limited by theSharvin conductance.
The spin injection and accumulation in metallic lateral spin valves with transparent interfaces is studied using d.c. injection current. Unlike a.c.-based techniques, this allows investigating the effects of the direction and magnitude of the injected current. We find that the spin accumulation is reversed by changing the direction of the injected current, whereas its magnitude does not change. The injection mechanism for both current directions is thus perfectly symmetric, leading to the same spin injection efficiency for both spin types. This result is accounted for by a spin-dependent diffusion model. Joule heating increases considerably the local temperature in the spin valves when high current densities are injected ($sim$80--105 K for 1--2$times10^{7}$A cm$^{-2}$), strongly affecting the spin accumulation.