Spin transport in self assembled all-metal nanowire spin valves: A study of the pure Elliott-Yafet mechanism

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates spin transport in all-metal nanowire spin valves, revealing that the Elliott-Yafet mechanism dominates spin relaxation in copper, with a relaxation length of about 16 nm and minimal temperature or electric field dependence.

Contribution

It isolates and characterizes the pure Elliott-Yafet spin relaxation mechanism in copper nanowires, providing quantitative measures of relaxation length and time.

Findings

Elliott-Yafet mechanism dominates spin relaxation in copper nanowires.

Spin relaxation length is approximately 16 nm, nearly temperature-independent.

Spin relaxation time is about 100 femtoseconds, unaffected by electric field variations.

Abstract

We report experimental study of spin transport in all-metal nanowire spin valve structures. The nanowires have a diameter of 50 nm and consist of three layers - cobalt, copper and nickel. Based on the experimental observations, we conclude that the primary spin relxation mechanism in the paramagnet copper is the Elliott-Yafet mode associated with frequent interface roughness scattering. This mode is overwhelmingly dominant over all other modes, so that we are able to study the pure Elliott-Yafet mode in isolation. We deduce that the effective spin relaxation length associated with this mechanism is about 16 nm in our nanowires and is fairly independent of temperature in the range 1 - 100 K. The corresponding spin relaxation time is about 100 femtoseconds. We also find that the spin relaxation length or time is fairly independent of the electric field driving the current in the range 0.75 - 7.5 kV/cm.