1. Highly efficient and tuneable spin-to-charge conversion through Rashba coupling at oxide interfaces
- Author
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Lesne, E., Fu, Y., Oyarzun, S., Rojas-Sanchez, J. C., Vaz, D. C., Naganuma, H., Sicoli, G., Attane, J. -P., Jamet, M., Jacquet, E., George, J. -M., Barthelemy, A., Jaffres, H., Fert, A., Bibes, M., and Vila, L.
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Condensed Matter - Materials Science - Abstract
The spin-orbit interaction couples the electrons' motion to their spin. Accordingly, passing a current in a material with strong spin-orbit coupling generates a transverse spin current (spin Hall effect, SHE) and vice-versa (inverse spin Hall effect, ISHE). The emergence of SHE and ISHE as charge-to-spin interconversion mechanisms offers a variety of novel spintronics functionalities and devices, some of which do not require any ferromagnetic material. However, the interconversion efficiency of SHE and ISHE (spin Hall angle) is a bulk property that rarely exceeds ten percent, and does not take advantage of interfacial and low-dimensional effects otherwise ubiquitous in spintronics hetero- and mesostructures. Here, we make use of an interface-driven spin-orbit coupling mechanism - the Rashba effect - in the oxide two-dimensional electron system (2DES) LaAlO3/SrTiO3 to achieve spin-to-charge conversion with unprecedented efficiency. Through spin-pumping, we inject a spin current from a NiFe film into the oxide 2DES and detect the resulting charge current, which can be strongly modulated by a gate voltage. We discuss the amplitude of the effect and its gate dependence on the basis of the electronic structure of the 2DES., Comment: Final version just published in Nature Materials. Contact author for a reprint
- Published
- 2016
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