English

Interface disorder as a cause for kinetic Rashba-Edelstein effect and interface Spin-Hall effect at the metal-insulator boundary

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2023-09-08 v2

Abstract

The spin phenomena observed at a clean metall-insulator interface are typically reduced to Rashba-Edelstein effect, that leads to spin accumulation over a few monolayers. We demonstrate that the presence of interface disorder significantly expands the range of potential phenomena. Specifically, the skew scattering at the metal - insulator boundary gives rise to the "kinetic Rashba-Edelstein effect", where spin accumulation occurs on a much larger length scale comparable to mean free path. Moreover, at higher orders of spin-orbit interaction, skew scattering is accompanied with spin relaxation resulting in the interface spin-Hall effect - a conversion of electrical current to spin current at the metal surface. Unlike the conventional spin-Hall effect, this phenomenon persists even within the Born approximation. These two predicted phenomena can dominate the spin density and spin current in devices of intermediate thickness.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2309.02951,
  title  = {Interface disorder as a cause for kinetic Rashba-Edelstein effect and interface Spin-Hall effect at the metal-insulator boundary},
  author = {A. V. Shumilin and V. V. Kabanov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.02951},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Accepted in Phys. Rev. Research