Electrical spin-current generation is among the core phenomena driving the field of spintronics. Using {\em ab initio} calculations we show that a room-temperature metallic collinear antiferromagnet RuO2 allows for highly efficient spin-current generation, arising from anisotropically-split bands with conserved up and down spins along the N\'eel vector axis. The zero net moment antiferromagnet acts as an electrical spin-splitter with a 34∘ propagation angle between spin-up and spin-down currents. Correspondingly, the spin-conductivity is a factor of three larger than the record value from a survey of 20,000 non-magnetic spin-Hall materials. We propose a versatile spin-splitter-torque concept utilizing antiferromagnetic RuO2 films interfaced with a ferromagnet.
@article{arxiv.2002.07073,
title = {Efficient Electrical Spin-Splitter Based on Non-Relativistic Collinear Antiferromagnetism},
author = {Rafael González-Hernández and Libor Šmejkal and Karel Výborný and Yuta Yahagi and Jairo Sinova and Tomáš Jungwirth and Jakub Železný},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.07073},
year = {2021}
}