Large spin-charge interconversion induced by interfacial spin-orbit coupling in a highly conducting all-metallic system

Van Tuong Pham,Haozhe Yang,Ilya V Tokatly,Fèlix Casanova,F Sebastian Bergeret,Won Young Choi,Alain Marty,Andrey Chuvilin,Luis E Hueso,Inge Groen

doi:10.1103/physrevb.104.184410

Abstract

Spin-charge interconversion in systems with spin-orbit coupling has provided a new route for the generation and detection of spin currents in functional devices for memory and logic such as spin-orbit torque switching in magnetic memories or magnetic state reading in spin-based logic. Disentangling the bulk (spin Hall effect) from the interfacial (inverse spin galvanic effect) contribution has been a common issue to properly quantify the spin-charge interconversion in these systems, being the case of Au paradigmatic. Here, we obtain a large spin-charge interconversion at a highly conducting Au/Cu interface which is experimentally shown to arise from the inverse spin galvanic effect of the interface and not from the spin Hall effect of bulk Au. We use two parameters independent of the microscopic details to properly quantify the spin-charge interconversion and the spin losses due to the interfacial spin-orbit coupling, providing an adequate benchmarking to compare with any spin-charge interconversion system. The good performance of this metallic interface, not based in Bi, opens the path to the use of much simpler light/heavy metal systems.

Highlights

In spite of the strong applied interest, quantification of these conversions is a common source of controversies[7,8,10]
Since the injected spin current is absorbed while crossing the vertical Au/Cu channel, which acts as a spin sink, the obtained spin signal 2∆RNabLs is smaller than the reference spin signal 2∆RNreLf
We identified a sizable spin-charge interconversion at Au/Cu interfaces unequivocally arising from the interfacial SOC and not from bulk SHE in Au

Summary

Introduction

In spite of the strong applied interest, quantification of these conversions is a common source of controversies[7,8,10]. Experimental observation of spin-to-charge current conversion at non-magnetic metal/Bi2 O3 interfaces, Appl.

Results

Conclusion