Observation of magnon-mediated current drag in Pt/yttrium iron garnet/Pt(Ta) trilayers

Junxue Li, Yadong Xu, Mohammed Aldosary, Chi Tang, Zhisheng Lin, Shufeng Zhang, Roger Lake, Jing Shi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

108 Scopus citations

Abstract

Pure spin current, a flow of spin angular momentum without flow of any accompanying net charge, is generated in two common ways. One makes use of the spin Hall effect in normal metals (NM) with strong spin-orbit coupling, such as Pt or Ta. The other utilizes the collective motion of magnetic moments or spin waves with the quasi-particle excitations called magnons. A popular material for the latter is yttrium iron garnet, a magnetic insulator (MI). Here we demonstrate in NM/MI/NM trilayers that these two types of spin currents are interconvertible across the interfaces, predicated as the magnon-mediated current drag phenomenon. The transmitted signal scales linearly with the driving current without a threshold and follows the power-law Tn with n ranging from 1.5 to 2.5. Our results indicate that the NM/MI/NM trilayer structure can serve as a scalable pure spin current valve device which is an essential ingredient in spintronics.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number10858
JournalNature communications
Volume7
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2 2016
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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