We experimentally confirmed that the spin-orbit lengths of noble metals obtained from weak anti-localization measurements are comparable to the spin diffusion lengths determined from lateral spin valve ones. Even for metals with strong spin-orbit interactions such as Pt, we verified that the two methods gave comparable values which were much larger than those obtained from recent spin torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements. To give a further evidence for the comparability between the two length scales, we measured the disorder dependence of the spin-orbit length of copper by changing the thickness of the wire. The obtained spin-orbit length nicely follows a linear law as a function of the diffusion coefficient, clearly indicating that the Elliott-Yafet mechanism is dominant as in the case of the spin diffusion length.
@article{arxiv.1211.1222,
title = {Experimental Verification of Comparability between Spin-Orbit and Spin-Diffusion Lengths},
author = {Yasuhiro Niimi and Dahai Wei and Hiroshi Idzuchi and Taro Wakamura and Takeo Kato and YoshiChika Otani},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.1222},
year = {2013}
}