Experimental observation of a large ac-spin Hall effect

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates that the ac component of spin currents generated by spin pumping in ferromagnet-normal metal junctions can be efficiently detected via the inverse spin Hall effect, revealing larger signals than the dc component.

Contribution

The study provides the first experimental detection of the large ac spin Hall effect in FM-NM junctions, highlighting their potential as efficient GHz-range spin current sources.

Findings

Ac spin Hall voltages are an order of magnitude larger than dc voltages.

Spectral shape and angular dependence match spin pumping and ISHE.

FM-NM junctions are effective sources of pure ac spin currents.

Abstract

In spinelectronics the spin degree of freedom is used to transmit and store information. Ideally this occurs without net charge currents in order to avoid energy dissipation due to Joule heating. To this end the ability to create pure spin currents i.e.without net charge transfer is essential. Spin pumping is the most popular approach to generate pure spin currents in metals, semiconductors, graphene, and even organic materials. When the magnetization vector in a ferromagnet (FM) - normal metal (NM) junction is excited the spin pumping effect leads to the injection of pure spin currents in the normal metal. The polarization of this spin current is time dependent and contains a very small dc component. The dc-component of the injected spin current has been intensely studied in recent years and has given rise to controversial discussions concerning the magnitude the spin Hall angle which is a material dependent measure of the efficiency of spin to charge conversion . However in contrast to the rather well understood dc component the two orders of magnitude larger ac component has escaped experimental detection so far. Here we show that the large ac component of the spin currents can be detected very efficiently using the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE). The observed ac-ISHE voltages are one order of magnitude larger than the conventional dc-ISHE measured on the same device. The spectral shape, angular dependence, power scaling behavior and absolute magnitude of the signals are in line with spin pumping and ISHE effects. Our results demonstrate that FM-NM junctions are very efficient sources of pure spin currents in the GHz frequency range and we believe that our result will stimulate the emerging field of ac spintronics.