Thickness dependence of spin Hall magnetoresistance in FeMn/Pt bilayers

Abstract

We investigated spin Hall magnetoresistance in FeMn/Pt bilayers, which was found to be one order of magnitude larger than that of heavy metal and insulating ferromagnet or antiferromagnet bilayer systems, and comparable to that of NiFe/Pt bilayers. The spin Hall magnetoresistance shows a non-monotonic dependence on the thicknesses of both FeMn and Pt. The former can be accounted for by the thickness dependence of net magnetization in FeMn thin films, whereas the latter is mainly due to spin accumulation and diffusion in Pt. Through analysis of the Pt thickness dependence, the spin Hall angle, spin diffusion length of Pt and the real part of spin mixing conductance were determined to be 0.2, 1.1 nm, and 5.5 × 1014 Ω-1m-2, respectively. The results corroborate the spin orbit torque effect observed in this system recently. © 2016 Author(s).