1. Spin-Flip Diffusion Length in 5d Transition Metal Elements: A First-Principles Benchmark
- Author
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Rohit Sasidharan Nair, Ehsan Barati, Paul J. Kelly, Kriti Gupta, Zhe Yuan, MESA+ Institute, and Computational Materials Science
- Subjects
Physics ,Quantitative Biology::Neurons and Cognition ,Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics ,Spintronics ,Condensed matter physics ,Scattering ,Fermi level ,FOS: Physical sciences ,General Physics and Astronomy ,01 natural sciences ,symbols.namesake ,Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) ,0103 physical sciences ,symbols ,Density of states ,Spin Hall effect ,Condensed Matter::Strongly Correlated Electrons ,Atomic number ,Spin-flip ,010306 general physics ,Computer Science::Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing ,Spin-½ - Abstract
Little is known about the spin-flip diffusion length $l_{\rm sf}$, one of the most important material parameters in the field of spintronics. We use a density-functional-theory based scattering approach to determine values of $l_{\rm sf}$ that result from electron-phonon scattering as a function of temperature for all 5d transition metal elements. $l_{\rm sf}$ does not decrease monotonically with the atomic number Z but is found to be inversely proportional to the density of states at the Fermi level. By using the same local current methodology to calculate the spin Hall angle $\Theta_{\rm sH}$ that characterizes the efficiency of the spin Hall effect, we show that the products $\rho(T)l_{\rm sf}(T)$ and $\Theta_{\rm sH}(T)l_{\rm sf}(T)$ are constant., Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters
- Published
- 2021
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