Final Report Summary - LSV-SIE (The role of surface scattering and impurities in metallic lateral Spin-valve Devices) The research is placed in the field of spintronics, aimed at utilizing both the spin and charge degrees of freedom in electronic devices, in order to realize novel physics and functionalities. Spintronics devices have had technological impact, such as GMR high density memory. Preparation and study of multi-terminal ‘lateral’ architecture spin-devices opens many opportunities for research and applications, and is in the basis of our research.The long term goals, starting with the “LSV-SIE” project, are to identify and understand the relevant physical laws governing spin injection, propagation and interactions in lateral devices as function of material properties and geometrical architecture. Most lateral spin-devices make use of metallic ferromagnetic (FM) materials with easy (stable) magnetization direction in-plane. Magnetic material with perpendicular magnetization anisotropy (PMA) are advantages since they show magnetic stability also at the nano-scale. Our aim was to integrate PMA materials into lateral spin valves and study different contributions due to the new materials and the perpendicular geometry, enabling to realize new spin related phenomena, e.g. the ‘spin Hall effect’.During the funding period I: 1. Developed material deposition methods for FM and other materials. 2. Developed nanolithography and clean room fabrication processes. 3. Set-up variable temperature and magnetic field measurement system and precision electronics. 5. Studied the magnetic properties and spin injection as function of materials and geometry. We prepare high quality PMA multilayers such as Co/Pt or CoFeAl/Pd, each layer less than ~1nm repeated about x20. These materials are of interest in themselves. We identified a change in resistance with magnetic field that was not known for the materials and a refinement method to effectively measure the magnetization properties (published in JAP). This motivated us to study Pt/Co/Pt layers with ultra-thin cobalt, ~1-3 unit-cells. By measuring the ‘anomalous Hall effect’ we discovered unexpected variations in the magnetic exchange interactions. (Summarizing results for publication).We fabricated and measured properties of spin-devices with PMA electrodes, and characterized the efficiency of these materials as a spin source. Additionally we found interesting thermal effects, related to the perpendicular properties (published in APL and JAP).We have presented the results of the project in scientific meetings including the American Physical Society; the Israeli Physical society and in scientific seminars in Israel, Spain and the USA. This integration period has enabled me to set up a high functioning lab, recruit students and place me in an excellent position to attain a tenure position in my institute. It has enabled me to continue work on state of the art research, where we are studying the spintronics properties of novel and interesting 2D layered materials such as MoS2 (in collaboration with experts in the field).
