Enhancement of YIG | Pt spin conductance by local Joule annealing

Abstract

We report that Joule heating can be used to enhance the interfacial spin conductivity between a metal and an oxide. We observe that local annealing of the interface at about 550 K, when injecting large current densities (> 10 12 A / m 2) into a pristine 7 nm thick Pt nanostrip evaporated on top of yttrium iron garnet (YIG), can improve the effective spin transmission up to a factor of 3. This result is of particular interest when interfacing ultrathin garnet films to avoid strong chemical etching of the surface. The effect is confirmed by the following methods: spin Hall magnetoresistance, spin pumping, and non-local spin transport. We use it to study the influence of the YIG |Pt coupling on the non-linear spin transport properties. We find that the crossover current from a linear to a non-linear spin transport regime is independent of this coupling.