Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik

MM 52: Electronic Properties II

MM 52.1: Talk

Thursday, March 25, 2010, 11:30–11:45, H5

Ab initio investigation of the Spin Hall Effect for non-magnetic alloys — •Stephan Lowitzer, Diemo Ködderitzsch, and Hubert Ebert — Department Chemie, Physikalische Chemie, Universität München, Butenandstr. 5-13, 81377 München, Germany

Spin-orbit coupling is responsible for several interesting phenomena like e.g. the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in magnetic materials. The AHE results from the interaction between spin-orbit coupling and the spin polarization. In comparison to the AHE the spin Hall effect (SHE) needs no spin polarization and is therefore even present in non-magnetic systems. This was shown by several experimental works e.g. [1].

During the last years several publications have appeared which studied the spin Hall effect for pure systems via ab initio e.g. [2] or model calculations [3]. However, up to now no publication is available in which the SHE is calculated for alloy systems on an ab initio level.

To calculate the SHE we have implemented the Kubo-Středa equation in our fully relativistic SPR-KKR package. The Kubo-Středa equation gives access to the full anti-symmetric conductivity tensor what is necessary for the calculation of the SHE. The disorder is treated via the coherent potential approximation (CPA). We show first results for several non-magnetic 3d and 4d transition metal alloys.

[1] S. O. Valenzuela and M. Tinkham, Nature 442, 176 (2006)

[2] Y. Yao and Z. Fang, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 156601 (2005)

[3] T. Tanaka, M. Kontani, M. Naito, T. Naito, D. S. Hirashima,

     K. Yamada and J. Inoue, Phys. Rev. B 77, 165117 (2008)