Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 48: Spin-dependent Transport Phenomena
MA 48.3: Talk
Friday, March 15, 2013, 10:00–10:15, H23
Colossal spin Hall angle in ultrathin metallic films — •Christian Herschbach1, Dmitry Fedorov1, Martin Gradhand3, and Ingrid Mertig1,2 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik, Weinberg 2, 06120 Hall, Germany — 2Institut für Physik, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 06099 Halle, Germany — 3H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TL, United Kingdom
To use the spin Hall effect (SHE) in possible spintronics devices, materials with a large spin Hall angle (SHA) are desirable. This quantity describes the efficiency of the charge to the spin current conversion. The largest experimental value of the SHA is 24%, which was measured recently in thin film Cu(Bi) alloys by Niimi et al. [1]. The giant SHE was predicted by ab initio calculations of the skew-scattering mechanism in bulk Cu with substitutional Bi impurities [2]. Recently, we have extended our calculations to the film geometry and showed that the SHE can be drastically increased in monolayer noble metal films with Pt impurities in comparison to the related bulk systems [3]. In the current work we continue our study and show that with an appropriate choice of impurities in 1ML noble metal films the SHA can be as large as 80%. Such colossal charge to spin current conversion is very promising for spintronics applications.
[1] Y. Niimi et al., PRL 109, 156602 (2012)
[2] M. Gradhand et al., PRL 104, 186403 (2010)
[3] C. Herschbach et al., PRB 85 195133 (2012)