Observation of intrinsic inverse spin Hall effect

We report observation of intrinsic inverse spin Hall effect in undoped GaAs multiple quantum wells with a sample temperature of 10 K. A transient ballistic pure spin current is injected by a pair of laser pulses through quantum interference. By time resolving the dynamics of the pure spin current, the momentum relaxation time is deduced, which sets the lower limit of the scattering time between electrons and holes. The transverse charge current generated by the pure spin current via the inverse spin Hall effect is simultaneously resolved. We find that the charge current is generated well before the first electron-hole scattering event. Generation of the transverse current in the scattering-free ballistic transport regime provides unambiguous evidence for the intrinsic inverse spin Hall effect.     

Spontaneous dissociation of long-range Feshbach molecules

We study the spontaneous dissociation of diatomic molecules produced in cold atomic gases via magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances. We provide a universal formula for the lifetime of these molecules that relates their decay to the scattering length and the loss rate constant for inelastic spin relaxation. Our universal treatment as well as our exact coupled channels calculations for 85Rb dimers predict a suppression of the decay over several orders of magnitude when the scattering length is increased. Our predictions are in good agreement with recent measurements of the lifetime of 85Rb(2).     

Rashba spin-orbit interaction and shot noise for spin-polarized and entangled electrons

We study shot noise for spin-polarized currents and entangled electron pairs in a four-probe (beam-splitter) geometry with a local Rashba spin-orbit (s-o) interaction in the incoming leads. Within the scattering formalism we find that shot noise exhibits Rashba-induced oscillations with continuous bunching and antibunching. We show that entangled states and triplet states can be identified via their Rashba phase in noise measurements. For two-channel leads, we find an additional spin rotation due to s-o induced interband coupling which enhances spin control. We show that the s-o interaction deter-mines the Fano factor, which provides a direct way to measure the Rashba coupling constant via noise.     

Current-induced spin transfer torque in ferromagnet-marginal Fermi liquid double tunnel junctions

Current-induced spin transfer torque through a marginal Fermi liquid (MFL) which is connected to two noncollinearly aligned ferromagnets via tunnel junctions is discussed in terms of the nonequilibrium Green function method. It is found that in the absence of the spin–flip scattering, the magnitude of the torque increases with the polarization and the coupling constant λ of the MFL, whose maximum increases with λ linearly, showing that the interactions between electrons tend to enhance the spin torque. When the spin–flip scattering is included, an additional spin torque is induced. It is found that the spin–flip scattering enhances the spin torque and gives rise to a nonlinear angular shift.     

Spin-dependent low-energy 4He+ ion scattering from nonmagnetic surfaces

We investigated electron-spin-polarized (4)He(+) ion scattering on various nonmagnetic surfaces at kinetic energies below 2 keV. It was observed that the scattered He(+) ion yield depends on the He(+) ion spin. We interpret this spin-dependent scattering in terms of the spin-orbit coupling that acts transiently on the He(+)1s electron spin in the He(+)-target binary collision. This interpretation qualitatively explains the relationship between the spin-dependent scattering and the scattering geometry, incident velocity, and magnetic field arrangement. This is the first study to report spin-orbit coupling caused by projectile electron spin in ion scattering.     

Magnetic properties of X<Subscript>0.5</Subscript>Mn<Subscript>0.5</Subscript>/Cu(001) overlayers,X = Fe,Mn, and Ir: ab-initio calculations

We study the effect of a magnetic impurity with spin-half on a single propagating electron in a one-dimensional model system via the tight-binding approach. Due to the spin-dependent interaction, the scattering channel for the flying qubit is split, and its transmission spectrum is obtained. It is found that, the spin orientation of the impurity plays the role as a spin state filter for a flying qubit.     

Control of spin waves in a thin film ferromagnetic insulator through interfacial spin scattering

Control of spin waves in a ferrite thin film via interfacial spin scattering was demonstrated. The experiments used a 4.6 μm-thick yttrium iron garnet (YIG) film strip with a 20-nm thick Pt capping layer. A dc current pulse was applied to the Pt layer and produced a spin current across the Pt thickness. As the spin current scatters off the YIG surface, it can either amplify or attenuate spin-wave pulses that travel in the YIG strip, depending on the current or field configuration. The spin scattering also affects the saturation behavior of high-power spin waves.     

Coherent light scattering from a two-dimensional Mott insulator

We experimentally demonstrate coherent light scattering from an atomic Mott insulator in a two-dimensional lattice. The far-field diffraction pattern of small clouds of a few hundred atoms was imaged while simultaneously laser cooling the atoms with the probe beams. We describe the position of the diffraction peaks and the scaling of the peak parameters by a simple analytic model. In contrast to Bragg scattering, scattering from a single plane yields diffraction peaks for any incidence angle. We demonstrate the feasibility of detecting spin correlations via light scattering by artificially creating a one-dimensional antiferromagnetic order as a density wave and observing the appearance of additional diffraction peaks.     

Dy2Ti2O7 spin ice: a test case for emergent clusters in a frustrated magnet

Dy2Ti2O7 is a geometrically frustrated magnetic material with a strongly correlated spin ice regime that extends from 1 K down to as low as 60 mK. The diffuse elastic neutron scattering intensities in the spin ice regime can be remarkably well described by a phenomenological model of weakly interacting hexagonal spin clusters, as invoked in other geometrically frustrated magnets. We present a highly refined microscopic theory of Dy2Ti2O7 that includes long-range dipolar and exchange interactions to third nearest neighbors and which demonstrates that the clusters are purely fictitious in this material. The seeming emergence of composite spin clusters and their associated scattering pattern is instead an indicator of fine-tuning of ancillary correlations within a strongly correlated state.     

Spin polarization of secondary electrons emitted from a nonmagnetic metal

We present the first angle-, energy-, and spin-resolved measurements of secondary electrons emitted from a Au(110) surface bombarded with unpolarized electrons. Both transversal components normal to and in the scattering plane, of the spin polarization vector exist. A simple two-step scattering process explains the observations, where the polarization is created via spin-orbit coupling in collisions of secondary electrons with ion-cores.     

Optical detection of spin transport in nonmagnetic metals

We determine the dynamic magnetization induced in nonmagnetic metal wedges composed of silver, copper, and platinum by means of Brillouin light scattering microscopy. The magnetization is transferred from a ferromagnetic Ni80Fe20 layer to the metal wedge via the spin pumping effect. The spin pumping efficiency can be controlled by adding an insulating interlayer between the magnetic and nonmagnetic layer. By comparing the experimental results to a dynamical macroscopic spin-transport model we determine the transverse relaxation time of the pumped spin current which is much smaller than the longitudinal relaxation time.     

Nonexistence of intrinsic spin currents

We describe the electron spin dynamics in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and disorder using the spin-density matrix method. We show that in the Born approximation in the scattering amplitude the spin current is zero for an arbitrary ratio of the spin-orbit splitting and the scattering rate. Various types of the disorder potential are studied. We argue that the bulk spin current always depends explicitly on scattering by impurities. In this sense universal intrinsic spin current does not exist.     

Effect of spin-orbit scattering on the magnetic and superconducting properties of nearly ferromagnetic metals: application to granular Pt

We calculate the effect of scattering on the static, exchange enhanced, spin susceptibility and show that, in particular, spin-orbit scattering leads to a reduction of the giant moments and spin glass freezing temperature due to dilute magnetic impurities. The harmful spin fluctuation contribution to the intragrain pairing interaction is strongly reduced opening the way for BCS superconductivity. We are thus able to explain the superconducting and magnetic properties recently observed in granular Pt as being due to scattering effects in single small grains.     

Edge spin accumulation in a ballistic regime

We consider a mesoscopic ballistic structure with Rashba spin-orbit splitting of the electron spectrum. The ballistic region is attached to the leads with a voltage applied between them. We calculate the edge spin density which appears in the presence of a charge current through the structure due to the difference in populations of electrons coming from different leads. Combined effect of the boundary scattering and spin precession leads to oscillations of the edge polarization with the envelope function decaying as a power law of the distance from the boundary. The problem is solved with the use of scattering states. The simplicity of the method allows us gain an insight into the underlying physics. We clarify the role of the unitarity of scattering for the problem of edge spin accumulation. In case of a straight boundary it leads to exact cancellation of all long-wave oscillations of the spin density. As a result, only the Friedel-like spin density oscillations with the momentum 2k _F survive. However, this appears to be rather exceptional case. In general, the smooth spin oscillations with the spin precession length recover, as it happens, e.g., for the wiggly boundary. We demonstrate also, that there is no relation between the spin current in the bulk, which is zero in the considered case, and the edge spin accumulation.     

Spin waves and revised crystal structure of honeycomb iridate Na2IrO3

We report inelastic neutron scattering measurements on Na2IrO3, a candidate for the Kitaev spin model on the honeycomb lattice. We observe spin-wave excitations below 5 meV with a dispersion that can be accounted for by including substantial further-neighbor exchanges that stabilize zigzag magnetic order. The onset of long-range magnetic order below T(N)=15.3 K is confirmed via the observation of oscillations in zero-field muon-spin rotation experiments. Combining single-crystal diffraction and density functional calculations we propose a revised crystal structure model with significant departures from the ideal 90° Ir-O-Ir bonds required for dominant Kitaev exchange.     

Dynamics of polarization buildup by spin filtering

There has been much recent research into polarizing an antiproton beam, instigated by the recent proposal from the PAX (Polarized Antiproton eXperiment) project at GSI Darmstadt. It plans to polarize an antiproton beam by repeated interaction with a polarized internal target in a storage ring. The method of polarization by spin filtering requires many of the beam particles to remain within the ring after scattering off the polarized internal target via electromagnetic and hadronic interactions. We present and solve sets of differential equations which describe the buildup of polarization by spin filtering in many different scenarios of interest to projects planning to produce high-intensity polarized beams. These scenarios are: 1) spin filtering of a fully stored beam; 2) spin filtering while the beam is being accumulated, i.e. unpolarized particles are continuously being fed into the beam; 3) the particle input rate is equal to the rate at which particles are being lost due to scattering beyond the ring acceptance angle, the beam intensity remaining constant; 4) increasing the initial polarization of a stored beam by spin filtering; 5) the input of particles into the beam is stopped after a certain amount of time, but spin filtering continues. The rate of depolarization of a stored polarized beam on passing through an electron cooler is also shown to be negligible.     

The spin Hall effect in single-crystalline gold thin films

The spin Hall effect has been investigated in 10-nm-thick epitaxial Au(001) single crystal films via H-pattern devices,whose minimum characteristic dimension is about 40 nm. By improving the film quality and optimizing the in-plane geometry parameters of the devices, we explicitly extract the spin Hall effect contribution from the ballistic and bypass contribution which were previously reported to be dominating the non-local voltage. Furthermore, we calculate a lower limit of the spin Hall angle of 0.08 at room temperature. Our results indicate that the giant spin Hall effect in Au thin films is dominated not by the interior defects scattering, but by the surface scattering. Besides, our results also provide an additional experimental method to determine the magnitude of spin Hall angle unambiguously.     

Anomalous high-energy spin excitations in the high-Tc superconductor-parent antiferromagnet La₂CuO₄

Inelastic neutron scattering is used to investigate the collective magnetic excitations of the high-temperature superconductor-parent antiferromagnet La2CuO4. We find that while the lower energy excitations are well described by spin-wave theory, including one- and two-magnon scattering processes, the high-energy spin waves are strongly damped near the (1/2, 0) position in reciprocal space and merge into a momentum dependent continuum. This anomalous damping indicates the decay of spin waves into other excitations, possibly unbound spinon pairs.     

A virtual intersubband spin–flip spin–orbit coupling induced spin relaxation in GaAs (110) quantum wells

A spin relaxation mechanism is proposed based on a second-order spin–flip intersubband spin–orbit coupling together with the spin-conserving scattering. The corresponding spin relaxation time is calculated via the Fermi golden rule. It is shown that this mechanism is important in symmetric GaAs (110) quantum wells with high impurity density. The dependencies of the spin relaxation time on electron density, temperature and well width are studied with the underlying physics analyzed.