Akashdeep Kamra

Experimental Test of the Spin Mixing Interface Conductivity Concept

We perform a quantitative, comparative study of the spin pumping, spin Seebeck, and spin Hall magnetoresistance effects, all detected via the inverse spin Hall effect in a series of over 20 yttrium iron garnet/Pt samples. Our experimental results fully support present, exclusively spin current-based, theoretical models using a single set of plausible parameters for spin mixing conductance, spin Hall angle, and spin diffusion length. Our findings establish the purely spintronic nature of the aforementioned effects and provide a quantitative description, in particular, of the spin Seebeck effect.

Magnon, phonon, and electron temperature profiles and the spin Seebeck effect in magnetic insulator/normal metal hybrid structures

We calculate the phonon, electron, and magnon temperature profiles in yttrium iron garnet/platinum bilayers by diffusive theory with appropriate boundary conditions, in particular taking into account interfacial thermal resistances. Our calculations show that in thin film hybrids, the interface magnetic heat conductance qualitatively affects the magnon temperature. Based on published material parameters we assess the degree of nonequilibrium at the yttrium iron garnet/platinum interface. The magnitude of the spin Seebeck effect derived from this approach compares well with experimental results for the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect. Additionally, we address the temperature profiles in the transverse spin Seebeck effect.

Origin of the spin Seebeck effect in compensated ferrimagnets

Magnons are the elementary excitations of a magnetically ordered system. In ferromagnets, only a single band of low-energy magnons needs to be considered, but in ferrimagnets the situation is more complex owing to different magnetic sublattices involved. In this case, low lying optical modes exist that can affect the dynamical response. Here we show that the spin Seebeck effect (SSE) is sensitive to the complexities of the magnon spectrum. The SSE is caused by thermally excited spin dynamics that are converted to a voltage by the inverse spin Hall effect at the interface to a heavy metal contact. By investigating the temperature dependence of the SSE in the ferrimagnet gadolinium iron garnet, with a magnetic compensation point near room temperature, we demonstrate that higher-energy exchange magnons play a key role in the SSE.

Spin relaxation due to electron–electron magnetic interaction in high Lande g-factor semiconductors

We investigate spin transport in InSb/InAlSb heterostructure using the Monte Carlo approach, generalized by including density matrix description of spin for taking spin dynamics into account. In addition to the dominant Dyakonov–Perel (DP) mechanism for spin control and relaxation, we consider magnetic interaction between electrons which assumes importance due to high electronic Lande g-factor in the material. It is found that while the effect of magnetic interaction is not important at low densities, it reduces the spin relaxation length by as much as 50% at higher densities. We also present a calculation which elucidates the suppression of decoherence attributed to wave vector dependent magnetic field in the DP relaxation mechanism. We note that magnetic interaction is a general relaxation mechanism which may assume importance in materials with high electronic Lande g-factor.

Time resolved spin Seebeck effect experiments

In this Letter, we present the results of transient thermopower experiments, performed at room temperature on yttrium iron garnet/platinum bilayers. Upon application of a time-varying thermal gradient, we observe a characteristic low-pass frequency response of the ensuing thermopower voltage with cutoff frequencies of up to 37 MHz. We interpret our results in terms of the spin Seebeck effect, and argue that small wavevector magnons are of minor importance for the spin Seebeck effect in our thin film hybrid structures.

Angular and linear momentum of excited ferromagnets

The angular momentum vector of a Heisenberg ferromagnet with isotropic exchange interaction is conserved, while under uniaxial crystalline anisotropy the projection of the total spin along the easy axis is a constant of motion. Using Noethers theorem, we prove that these conservation laws persist in the presence of dipole-dipole interactions. However, spin and orbital angular momentum are no longer conserved separately. We also define the linear momentum of ferromagnetic textures. We illustrate the general principles with special reference to spin transfer torques and identify the emergence of a nonadiabatic effective field acting on domain walls in ferromagnetic insulators.

Coherent elastic excitation of spin waves

We model the injection of elastic waves into a ferromagnetic film (F) by a nonmagnetic transducer (N). We compare the configurations in which the magnetization is normal and parallel to the wave propagation. The lack of axial symmetry in the former results in the emergence of evanescent interface states. We compute the energy-flux transmission across the N|F interface and sound-induced magnetization dynamics in the ferromagnet. We predict efficient acoustically induced pumping of spin current into a metal contact attached to F.

Super-Poissonian Shot Noise of Squeezed-Magnon Mediated Spin Transport

The magnetization of a ferromagnet (F) driven out of equilibrium injects pure spin current into an adjacent conductor (N). Such F|N bilayers have become basic building blocks in a wide variety of spin-based devices. We evaluate the shot noise of the spin current traversing the F|N interface when F is subjected to a coherent microwave drive. We find that the noise spectrum is frequency independent up to the drive frequency, and increases linearly with frequency thereafter. The low frequency noise indicates super-Poissonian spin transfer, which results from quasiparticles with effective spin ℏ^{*}=ℏ(1+δ). For typical ferromagnetic thin films, δ∼1 is related to the dipolar interaction-mediated squeezing of F eigenmodes.

Theoretical model for torque differential magnetometry of single-domain magnets

We present a generic theoretical model for torque differential magnetometry (TDM)—an experimental method for determining the magnetic properties of a magnetic specimen by recording the resonance frequency of a mechanical oscillator, on which the magnetic specimen has been mounted, as a function of the applied magnetic field. The effective stiffness change, and hence the resonance frequency shift, of the oscillator due to the magnetic torque on the specimen is calculated, treating the magnetic specimen as a single magnetic domain. Our model can deal with an arbitrary magnetic free-energy density characterizing the specimen, as well as any relative orientation of the applied magnetic field, the specimen, and the oscillator. Our calculations agree well with published experimental data. The theoretical model presented here allows one to take full advantage of TDM as an efficient magnetometry method.

Spin Hall noise

We measure the low-frequency thermal fluctuations of pure spin current in a platinum film deposited on yttrium iron garnet via the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE)-mediated voltage noise as a function of the angle ? between the magnetization and the transport direction. The results are consistent with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem in terms of the recently discovered spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR). We present a microscopic description of the ? dependence of the voltage noise in terms of spin-current fluctuations and ISHE.