Spin accumulation detection of FMR driven spin pumping in silicon-based metal-oxide-semiconductor heterostructures

The use of the spin Hall effect and its inverse to electrically detect and manipulate dynamic spin currents generated via ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) driven spin pumping has enabled the investigation of these dynamically injected currents across a wide variety of ferromagnetic materials. However, while this approach has proven to be an invaluable diagnostic for exploring the spin pumping process it requires strong spin-orbit coupling, thus substantially limiting the materials basis available for the detector/channel material (primarily Pt, W and Ta). Here, we report FMR driven spin pumping into a weak spin-orbit channel through the measurement of a spin accumulation voltage in a Si-based metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) heterostructure. This alternate experimental approach enables the investigation of dynamic spin pumping in a broad class of materials with weak spin-orbit coupling and long spin lifetime while providing additional information regarding the phase evolution of the injected spin ensemble via Hanle-based measurements of the effective spin lifetime.

Long-range FMR driven spin pumping through a nonmagnetic insulator

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) driven spin pumping is an emerging technique for injection of a pure spin current from a ferromagnet (FM) into a non-magnetic (NM) material without an accompanying charge current. It is widely believed that this pumping proceeds exclusively via a short-range exchange interaction at the FM/NM interface. Here we report robust, long-range spin pumping from the ferrimagnetic double perovskite Sr2FeMoO6 (SFMO) into Pt across an insulating barrier up to 200 nm thick, and systematically rule out all known spurious effects. This result demonstrates dynamic spin injection over a distance far beyond the coupling range of the exchange interaction, exposing the need to consider other coupling mechanisms. The characteristic length scale for magnetic textures in Sr2FeMoO6 is approximately 150 nm, resulting from structural antiphase boundaries, thus raising the possibility that magnetic dipole coupling underlies the observed long range spin transfer. This discovery reveals a route to dynamic angular momentum transfer between a FM and a NM in the absence of mediation by itinerant electrons and promises new spin-functional devices employing long-range spin pumping.