Sibylle Meyer

Quantitative study of the spin Hall magnetoresistance in ferromagnetic insulator/normal metal hybrids

We experimentally investigate and quantitatively analyze the spin Hall magnetoresistance effect in ferromagnetic insulator/platinum and ferromagnetic insulator/nonferromagnetic metal/platinum hybrid structures. For the ferromagnetic insulator, we use either yttrium iron garnet, nickel ferrite, or magnetite and for the nonferromagnet, copper or gold. The spin Hall magnetoresistance effect is theoretically ascribed to the combined action of spin Hall and inverse spin Hall effect in the platinum metal top layer. It therefore should characteristically depend upon the orientation of the magnetization in the adjacent ferromagnet and prevail even if an additional, nonferromagnetic metal layer is inserted between Pt and the ferromagnet. Our experimental data corroborate these theoretical conjectures. Using the spin Hall magnetoresistance theory to analyze our data, we extract the spin Hall angle and the spin diffusion length in platinum. For a spin-mixing conductance of 4×1014 ??1m?2, we obtain a spin Hall angle of 0.11±0.08 and a spin diffusion length of (1.5±0.5) nm for Pt in our thin-film samples

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.

Investigation of induced Pt magnetic polarization in Pt/Y3Fe5O12 bilayers

Using X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements, we explore the possible existence of induced magnetic moments in thin Pt films deposited onto the ferrimagnetic insulator yttrium iron garnet (Y3Fe5O12). Such a magnetic proximity effect is well established for Pt/ferromagnetic metal heterostructures. Indeed, we observe a clear XMCD signal at the Pt L3 edge in Pt/Fe bilayers, while no such signal can be discerned in XMCD traces of Pt/Y3Fe5O12 bilayers. Integrating the XMCD signals allows to estimate an upper limit for the induced Pt magnetic polarization in Pt/Y3Fe5O12 bilayers.

Current heating induced spin Seebeck effect

A measurement technique for the spin Seebeck effect is presented, wherein the normal metal layer used for its detection is exploited simultaneously as a resistive heater and thermometer. We show how the various contributions to the measured total signal can be disentangled, allowing to extract the voltage signal solely caused by the spin Seebeck effect. To this end, we performed measurements as a function of the external magnetic field strength and its orientation. We find that the effect scales linearly with the induced rise in temperature, as expected for the spin Seebeck effect.

Temperature dependent spin transport properties of platinum inferred from spin Hall magnetoresistance measurements

We study the temperature dependence of the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) in yttrium iron garnet/platinum hybrid structures via magnetization orientation dependent magnetoresistance measurements. Our experiments show a decrease of the SMR magnitude with decreasing temperature. Using the sensitivity of the SMR to the spin transport properties of the normal metal, we interpret our data in terms of a decrease of the spin Hall angle in platinum from 0.11 at room temperature to 0.075 at 10 K, while the spin diffusion length and the spin mixing conductance of the ferrimagnetic insulator/normal metal interface remain almost constant.

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.

Anomalous Hall effect in YIG|Pt bilayers

We measure the ordinary and the anomalous Hall effect in a set of yttrium iron garnet

Observation of the spin Nernst effect

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Time resolved spin Seebeck effect experiments

platinum (YIG

Spin Hall noise

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