Large spin-Hall effect in Si at room temperature

Abstract

Silicon's weak intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and centrosymmetric crystal structure are a critical bottleneck to the development of Si spintronics, because they lead to an insignificant spin-Hall effect (spin current generation) and inverse spin-Hall effect (spin current detection). Here, we undertake current, magnetic field, crystallography dependent magnetoresistance and magneto thermal transport measurements to study the spin transport behavior in freestanding Si thin films. We observe a large spin-Hall magnetoresistance in both p-Si and n-Si at room temperature and it is an order of magnitude larger than that of Pt. One explanation of the unexpectedly large and efficient spin-Hall effect is spin-phonon coupling instead of spin-orbit coupling. The macroscopic origin of the spin-phonon coupling can be large strain gradients that can exist in the freestanding Si films. This discovery in a light, earth abundant and centrosymmetric material opens a new path of strain engineering to achieve spin dependent properties in technologically highly-developed materials.

References in corpus (22)

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• New Perspectives for Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling
• Theory of spin Hall magnetoresistance
• Hidden spin polarization in inversion-symmetric bulk crystals
• Quantitative study of the spin Hall magnetoresistance in ferromagnetic insulator/normal metal hybrids
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• Observation of the inverse spin Hall effect in silicon
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• Transverse spin Seebeck vs. Anomalous and Planar Nernst Effects in Permalloy Thin Films
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• Mapping spin-orbit splitting in strained InGaAs epilayers
• Metric-wave approach to flexoelectricity within density-functional perturbation theory
• Spin phonon interactions and magneto-thermal transport behavior in p-Si
• Spin-Hall effect and emergent antiferromagnetic phase transition in n-Si
• Spin mediated magneto-electro-thermal transport behavior in Ni80Fe20/MgO/p-Si thin films
• Spin driven emergent antiferromagnetism and metal insulator transition in nanoscale p-Si
• Generation and detection of dissipationless spin current in MgO/Si bilayer

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Unveiling the mechanism of bulk spin-orbit torques within chemically disordered Fe${}_x$Pt${}_{1-x}$ single layers
• Large Magnetic Moment in Flexoelectronic Silicon at Room Temperature
• Energy-efficient spin injector into semiconductors driven by elastic waves
• Spin Hall angle fluctuations in a disorder device
• Photoinduced spin-Hall resonance in a k^3-Rashba spin-orbit coupled two dimensional hole system
• Flexoelectronic doping of the degenerate silicon and the correlated electron behavior
• Oscillatory Hall effect from magnetoelectronic coupling in flexoelectronic silicon
• Spin Hall angle in single-layer graphene
• Evidence of magnetoelectronic electromagnon mediated transport in flexoelectronic heterostructures
• Resonant spin Hall and Nernst effect in a nanoribbon of a spin-orbit coupled electronic system
• Experimental evidence of hidden spin polarization in silicon by using strain gradient
• Interlayer charge transfer from contact electrification in conducting micro and nanoscale thin film heterostructures