Quantifying the spin mixing conductance of EuO/W heterostructures by spin Hall magnetoresistance experiments

TL;DR

This study measures the spin mixing conductance in EuO/W heterostructures using spin Hall magnetoresistance, revealing temperature-dependent behaviors of the real and imaginary components of the conductance.

Contribution

It provides the first quantitative analysis of the complex spin mixing conductance in EuO/W heterostructures via SMR experiments.

Findings

Imaginary part of conductance is ten times larger than the real part.

Both parts decrease with increasing temperature.

Thermal fluctuations influence the conductance reduction.

Abstract

The spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) allows to investigate the magnetic textures of magnetically ordered insulators in heterostructures with normal metals by magnetotransport experiments. We here report the observation of the SMR in in-situ prepared ferromagnetic EuO/W thin film bilayers with magnetically and chemically well-defined interfaces. We characterize the magnetoresistance effects utilizing angle-dependent and field-dependent magnetotransport measurements as a function of temperature. Applying the established SMR model, we derive and quantify the real and imaginary parts of the complex spin mixing interface conductance. We find that the imaginary part is by one order of magnitude larger than the real part. Both decrease with increasing temperature. This reduction is in agreement with thermal fluctuations in the ferromagnet.