Moderate Positive Spin Hall Angle In Uranium

Abstract

We report measurements of spin pumping and the inverse spin Hall effect in Ni80Fe20/uranium bilayers designed to study the efficiency of spin-charge interconversion in a super-heavy element. We employ broad-band ferromagnetic resonance on extended films to inject a spin current from the Ni80Fe20 (permalloy) into the uranium layer, which is then converted into an electric field by the inverse spin Hall effect. Surprisingly, our results suggest a spin mixing conductance of order 2 × 1019 m-2 and a positive spin Hall angle of 0.004, which are both merely comparable with those of several transition metals. These results thus support the idea that the electronic configuration may be at least as important as the atomic number in governing spin pumping across interfaces and subsequent spin Hall effects. In fact, given that both the magnitude and the sign are unexpected based on trends in d-electron systems, materials with unfilled f-electron orbitals may hold additional exploration avenues for spin physics.

Publication Date

12-7-2015

Publication Title

Applied Physics Letters

Volume

107

Issue

23

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4936999

Socpus ID

84950142428 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84950142428

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