Effect of ferromagnetic contacts on spin accumulation in an all-metallic lateral spin-valve system: Semiclassical spin drift-diffusion equations

TL;DR

This study investigates how ferromagnetic contacts influence spin accumulation in an all-metallic lateral spin-valve system, revealing that contact placement and resistance ratios significantly affect spin signals and transresistance, with implications for spintronic device design.

Contribution

It provides a semiclassical analysis of the impact of ferromagnetic contacts on spin signals, highlighting the effects of contact position and resistance ratios in lateral spin-valve systems.

Findings

Transresistance can be fractionally suppressed or weakly affected by additional FM contacts.

Nonlocal spin signals are independent of the magnetization orientation of the additional FM electrode.

Nonlocal spin signals can be altered even with nonmagnetic contacts due to spin current leakage.

Abstract

We study the effect of the ferromagnetic (FM) contacts on the spin accumulation in the lateral spin valve system for the collinear magnetization configurations. When an additional FM electrode is introduced in the all-metallic lateral spin-valve system, we find that the transresistance can be fractionally suppressed or very weakly influenced depending on the position of the additional FM electrode, and relative magnitudes of contact resistance and the bulk resistance defined over the spin diffusion length. Nonlocal spin signals such as nonlocal voltage drop and leakage spin currents are independent of the magnetization orientation of the additional FM electrode. Even when the additional contact is nonmagnetic, nonlocal spin signals can be changed by the spin current leaking into the nonmagnetic electrode.