Spin-dependent transport at heavy metal/magnetic insulator interfaces is at the origin of many phenomena at the forefront of spintronics research. A proper quantification of the different spin-dependent interface conductances is… Click to show full abstract
Spin-dependent transport at heavy metal/magnetic insulator interfaces is at the origin of many phenomena at the forefront of spintronics research. A proper quantification of the different spin-dependent interface conductances is crucial for many applications. Here, we report the first measurement of the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) of Pt on a purely ferromagnetic insulator (EuS). We perform SMR measurements in a wide range of temperatures and fit the results by using a microscopic model. From this fitting procedure we obtain the temperature dependence of the spin conductances (Gs, Gr and Gi), disentangling the contribution of field-like torque (Gi), anti-damping-like torque (Gr), and spin-flip scattering (Gs). An interfacial exchange field of the order of 1 meV acting upon the conduction electrons of Pt can be estimated from Gi, which is at least three times larger than Gr below the Curie temperature. Our work provides an easy method to quantify this interfacial spin-splitting field, which play a key role in emerging fields such as superconducting spintronics and caloritronics, and topological quantum computation.
               
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