Crossover between spin swapping and Hall effect in disordered systems

Abstract

We theoretically study the crossover between spin Hall effect and spin swapping, a recently predicted phenomenon that consists of the interchange between the current flow and its spin polarization directions [M. B. Lifshits and M. I. Dyakonov, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 186601 (2009)]. Using a tight-binding model with spin-orbit coupled disorder, spin Hall effect, spin relaxation, and spin swapping are treated on equal footing. We demonstrate that spin swapping and spin Hall effect present very different dependencies as a function of the spin-orbit coupling and disorder strengths and confirm that the former exceeds the latter in the parameter range considered. Three setups are proposed for the experimental observation of the spin swapping effect.