Electrical spin injection and accumulation in ferromagnetic/Au/ferromagnetic lateral spin valves

Abstract

Spin injection and accumulation have been investigated for Ni81Fe19/Au/Ni81Fe19 lateral spin valves with various separations between spin injector and detector. The spin valve has been studied by using two distinct measurement configurations: the local and nonlocal measurement configurations. For both configurations, a spin valve signal has been found in the wide temperature range from 15 to 300 K, and the magnitude of the spin valve signal decreases as the temperature increases. Based on the nonlocal spin valve signals, we estimate that the spin-diffusion length of a Au film is 85 nm and that the spin-injection efficiency is 73% at T=15 K. (C) 2006 American Institute of Physics.