1] Institut Nanosciences et Cryogénie, CEA, 38054 Grenoble, France [2] Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53-38041 Grenoble, France.
1] Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Aragón (ICMA), Universidad de Zaragoza-CSIC, Facultad de Ciencias, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain [2] Laboratorio de Microscopías Avanzadas (LMA), Instituto de Nanociencia de Aragón (INA) and Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain.
Nat Commun. 2013;4:2944. doi: 10.1038/ncomms3944.
The Rashba effect is an interaction between the spin and the momentum of electrons induced by the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in surface or interface states. Its potential for conversion between charge and spin currents has been theoretically predicted but never clearly demonstrated for surfaces or interfaces of metals. Here we present experiments evidencing a large spin-charge conversion by the Bi/Ag Rashba interface. We use spin pumping to inject a spin current from a NiFe layer into a Bi/Ag bilayer and we detect the resulting charge current. As the charge signal is much smaller (negligible) with only Bi (only Ag), the spin-to-charge conversion can be unambiguously ascribed to the Rashba coupling at the Bi/Ag interface. This result demonstrates that the Rashba effect at interfaces can be used for efficient charge-spin conversion in spintronics.
Rashba 效应是由表面或界面态的自旋轨道耦合（SOC）引起的电子自旋和动量之间的相互作用。其在电荷和自旋电流之间转换的潜力已在理论上得到预测，但从未在金属的表面或界面上得到明确证明。在这里，我们展示了通过 Bi/Ag Rashba 界面实现大的自旋-电荷转换的实验证据。我们使用自旋泵浦将自旋电流从 NiFe 层注入到 Bi/Ag 双层中，并检测到相应的电荷电流。由于只有 Bi（只有 Ag）时电荷信号小得多（可以忽略不计），因此自旋到电荷的转换可以明确归因于 Bi/Ag 界面的 Rashba 耦合。这一结果表明，界面处的 Rashba 效应可用于 spintronics 中高效的电荷-自旋转换。
