Giant Spin Hall Effect Induced by Skew Scattering from Bismuth Impurities inside Thin Film CuBi Alloys

TLDR

The large negative spin Hall angle in CuBi alloys is explained by applying the resonant scattering model of Fert and Levy to 6p impurities. We demonstrate that a small amount of Bi impurities in Cu induces a giant spin Hall effect with a negative spin Hall angle of –0.24. Citation: Rev.

Abstract

We demonstrate that a giant spin Hall effect (SHE) can be induced by introducing a small amount of Bi impurities in Cu. Our analysis based on a new 3-dimensional finite element treatment of spin transport shows that the sign of the SHE induced by the Bi impurities is negative and its spin Hall (SH) angle amounts to -0.24. Such a negative large SH angle in CuBi alloys can be explained by applying the resonant scattering model proposed by Fert and Levy [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 157208 (2011)] to 6p impurities.