Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 28: Spin-dependent Transport Phenomena
MA 28.10: Talk
Thursday, March 25, 2010, 17:45–18:00, H3
Ab initio description of the extrinsic spin Hall effect — •Martin Gradhand1, Dimitry V. Fedorov2, Peter Zahn2, and Ingrid Mertig1,2 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik, Weinberg 2, D-06120 Halle, Germany — 2Institut für Physik, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, D-06099 Halle, Germany
The gigantic Spin Hall effect for Au, measured by Seki et. al. [1], could not be explained by the intrinsic contribution described by the Berry curvature. The extrinsic mechanisms for the spin separation, namely the side jump and the skew scattering, must be responsible for the observed effect.
Here we present our relativistic ab initio approach to analyze the skew scattering at substitutional impurities. The iterative solution of a linearized Boltzmann equation leads to the extrinsic contribution to the spin Hall effect. Using that, a new explanation for the gigantic spin Hall effect in Au is proposed [2]. In addition, we show that a sign change of the spin Hall effect is generated by varying the type of the impurity atom and can be understood from the microscopic transition probabilities.
[1] T. Seki et al., Nature Materials 7, 125 (2008)
[2] M. Gradhand et al., submitted to PRL (2009)