Nanomechanical detection of the spin Hall effect
arXiv:1509.01269 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.93.161414
Abstract
The spin Hall effect creates a spin current in response to a charge current in a material that has strong spin-orbit coupling. The size of the spin Hall effect in many materials is disputed, requiring independent measurements of the effect. We develop a novel mechanical method to measure the size of the spin Hall effect, relying on the equivalence between spin and angular momentum. The spin current carries angular momentum, so the flow of angular momentum will result in a mechanical torque on the material. We determine the size and geometry of this torque and demonstrate that it can be measured using a nanomechanical device. Our results show that measurement of the spin Hall effect in this manner is possible and also opens possibilities for actuating nanomechanical systems with spin currents.
5 pages + 2 pages supplementary material, 4 figures total
References in corpus (9)
- Experimental Observation of the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in a Magnetic Topological Insulator
- Direct electronic measurement of the spin Hall effect
- Electronic measurement and control of spin transport in Silicon
- Matching domain wall configuration and spin-orbit torques for very efficient domain-wall motion
- Nanowire Spin Torque Oscillator Driven by Spin Orbit Torques
- Experimental evidences of a large extrinsic spin Hall effect in AuW alloy
- Nanomechanical Detection of Itinerant Electron Spin Flip
- Experimental Verification of Comparability between Spin-Orbit and Spin-Diffusion Lengths
- Phase-sensitive detection of spin pumping via the ac inverse spin Hall effect