Spin relaxation in mesoscopic Ag wires in the diffusive transport regime is studied via nonlocal spin valve and Hanle effect measurements performed on permalloy/Ag lateral spin valves. The ratio between momentum and spin relaxation times is not constant at low temperatures. This can be explained with the Elliott-Yafet spin relaxation mechanism by considering the momentum surface relaxation time as being temperature dependent. We present a model to separately determine spin flip probabilities for phonon, impurity and surface scattering and find that the spin flip probability is highest for surface scattering.
@article{arxiv.0910.2744,
title = {Surface spin flip probability of mesoscopic Ag wires},
author = {G. Mihajlovic and J. E. Pearson and S. D. Bader and A. Hoffmann},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0910.2744},
year = {2015}
}