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A nonlocal spin Hall magnetoresistance in a platinum layer deposited on a magnon junction

Nature Electronics volume 3, pages 304–308 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Magnetoresistance effects are used in a variety of devices including hard disk drives and magnetic random access memories. In particular, giant magnetoresistance and tunnelling magnetoresistance can be used to create spin valves and tunnel junctions in which the resistance depends on the relative magnetization orientations of two ferromagnetic conducting layers. Here, we report a magnetoresistance effect that occurs in a platinum layer deposited on a magnon junction consisting of two insulating magnetic yttrium iron garnet (YIG) layers separated by an antiferromagnetic nickel oxide spacer layer. The resistance of the platinum layer is found to depend on the magnetization of the YIG layer in direct contact with it (an effect known as spin Hall magnetoresistance), but also the magnetization of the adjacent YIG layer in the junction. The resistance of the platinum layer is higher when the two YIG layers are aligned antiparallel than when parallel. We assign this behaviour to a magnonic nonlocal spin Hall magnetoresistance in which spin-carrying magnon propagation across the junction affects spin accumulation at the metal interface and hence modulates the spin Hall magnetoresistance. The effect could be used to develop spintronic and magnonic devices that have spin transport properties controlled by an all-insulating magnon junction and are thus free from Joule heating.

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Fig. 1: Schematics of the YIG/NiO/YIG/Pt heterostructure and the MNSMR effect.
Fig. 2: Magnetic and SSE characteristics of the MJ.
Fig. 3: MNSMR of the MJ.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper including the main text and Supplementary Information and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (MOST, grant nos 2017YFA0206200 and 2016YFA0300802) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, grant nos 51831012, 51620105004, 11974398, 51701203 and 11674373) and partially supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) (grant no. XDB07030200), the International Partnership Program (grant no. 112111KYSB20170090) and the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences (grant no. QYZDJ-SSW-SLH016) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). C.H.W acknowledges financial support from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, CAS (2020008). We also thank X.-G. Zhang at the University of Florida for fruitful discussions.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: C. Y. Guo, C. H. Wan.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    C. Y. Guo, C. H. Wan, W. Q. He, M. K. Zhao, Z. R. Yan, Y. W. Xing, X. Wang, P. Tang, Y. Z. Liu & X. F. Han

  2. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    C. Y. Guo & X. F. Han

  3. Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    S. Zhang

  4. School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

    Y. W. Liu

  5. Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong, China

    X. F. Han

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Contributions

X.F.H. led and was involved in all aspects of the project. C.H.W. and C.Y.G. are the first authors. C.Y.G., C.H.W., W.Q.H., M.K.Z. and Y.W.X. deposited stacks and fabricated devices. C.Y.G., C.H.W. and X.W. conducted magnetic and transport property measurements. C.H.W., Z.R.Y., S.Z. and P.T. contributed to modelling and theoretical analysis. C.H.W., S.Z. and X.F.H. wrote the paper. Z.R.Y., Y.Z.L. and Y.W.L. conducted the MuMax simulation. X.F.H. and C.H.W. supervised and designed the experiments. All authors contributed to data mining and analysis.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to X. F. Han.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Sections 1–8, Figs. 1–12 and Tables 1 and 2.

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Guo, C.Y., Wan, C.H., He, W.Q. et al. A nonlocal spin Hall magnetoresistance in a platinum layer deposited on a magnon junction. Nat Electron 3, 304–308 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-020-0425-9

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