Spin-memory loss induced by bulk spin–orbit coupling at ferromagnet/heavy-metal interfaces

Abstract

A spin current through a ferromagnet/heavy-metal interface may shrink due to the spin-flip at the interface, resulting in the spin-memory loss. Here, we propose a mechanism of the spin-memory loss. In contrast to other mechanisms based on interfacial spin–orbit coupling, our mechanism is based on the bulk spin–orbit coupling in a heavy metal. We demonstrate that the bulk spin–orbit coupling induces the entanglement between the spin and orbital degrees of freedom and this spin-orbital entanglement can give rise to sizable spin-flip at the interface even when the interfacial spin–orbit coupling is weak. Our mechanism emphasizes crucial roles of the atomic orbital degree of freedom and induces the strong spin-memory loss near band crossing points between bands of different orbital characters.