Spin-Current Generation in Metals, Semi-, and Superconductors
DIPC Seminars
- Speaker
-
Martin Gradhand, University of Bristol, UK
- When
-
2013/10/28
13:00 - Place
- Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal, 4 (nearby the Facultad de Quimica), Donostia
- Add to calendar
- iCal
Host: Ivo Souza
Spin-Current Generation in Metals, Semi-, and Superconductors
During the last years the efficient generation of pure spin currents or spin
polarized charge currents
became a highly active field of research. Exploiting the spin degree of
freedom of electrons in real
devices was coined spintronics in extension to the conventional electronics.
While at the beginning
spin-polarized charge currents where typically generated through ferromagnetic
materials the rediscovery of the spin Hall effect opened a completely
different route. This effect describes the pure spin-current generation in
nonmagnetic materials caused by spin-dependent scattering in materials with
strong spin-orbit coupling.
In this talk I will discuss this effect in detail. I will introduce the
different contributions and show
how they can be used to engineer the best material for different requirements
in actual devices. The
principle mechanism of the effect, spin-orbit driven spin separation is
present in a large class of
materials, such as metals, semiconductors and superconductors and I will
highlight different aspects in each material. This includes the anomalous Hall
effect in magnetic materials as well as the anomalous and spin Nernst effect,
which are the analogues to the previous induced by temperature gradients.