Giant extrinsic spin Hall effect due to rare-earth impurities

Abstract

We investigate the extrinsic spin Hall effect (SHE) in the electron gas model due to magnetic impurities, by focusing on Ce- and Yb-impurities. In the dilute limit, the skew scattering term dominates the side jump term. For Ceimpurities, the spin Hall angle αSH due to skew scattering is given by -8πδ2/7, where δ2(≪1) is the phase shift for the d (l = 2) partial wave. Since αSH reaches O(10-1) if δ2 ≳ 0.03, considerably large SHE is expected to emerge in metals with rare-earth impurities. The present study provides a highly efficient way to generate a spin current. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.