Interfacial spin Hall effect and spin swapping in Fe|Au bilayer from first principles

TL;DR

This study uses first-principles calculations to reveal complex interfacial spin Hall and spin swapping effects in Fe|Au bilayers, highlighting the importance of interface engineering for spintronic device performance.

Contribution

It uncovers the negative interfacial spin Hall current, its extension beyond the interface, and the interfacial spin swapping phenomena, providing new insights into spin transport at interfaces.

Findings

Interfacial spin Hall current flows opposite to bulk current.

Interfacial effects extend tens of nanometers at low temperature.

Interfacial spin swapping arises from spin precession under Rashba field.

Abstract

The interfaces in hybridized structures could give rise to rich phenomena, which open the way to novel devices with extraordinary performance. Here, we investigate the interface-related spin transport properties in Fe|Au bilayer based on first-principle calculation. We find that the spin Hall current in the Au side near the interface flows in the opposite direction to the bulk spin Hall current with the magnitude sensitive to the magnetization direction of Fe. This negative interfacial contribution is attributed to the spin dependent transmission within a few atomic layers, where a strong interfacial Rashba spin-orbit coupling exists. Surprisingly, the interfacial spin Hall currents are found to be not confined at the interface but extend tens of nanometers at low temperature, which is limited by momentum scattering and therefore much shorter than the spin diffusion length. In addition, the interfacial swapping spin currents, as a consequence of the spin precession under the interfacial Rashba field, are also obtained from our calculation and complete the full spin transport picture with all non-vanishing components. Our results suggest the importance of the interface engineering in spin-related transport in ferromagnetic|non-magnetic heterostructures and the possibility of manipulating the interfacial transport by the magnetization orientation of the magnetic layer.