Spin hall effect in paramagnetic thin films

Spintronics, an abbreviation of spin based electronics and also known as\nmagneto electronics, has attracted a lot of interest in recent years. It aims to explore the\nrole of electrons’ spins in building next generation electric devices. Using electrons’\nspins rather than electrons’ charges may allow faster, lower energy cost devices. Spin\nHall Effect is an important subfield of spintronics. It studies spin current, spin transport,\nand spin accumulation in paramagnetic systems. It can further understanding of\nquantum physics, device physics, and may also provide insights for spin injection, spin\ndetection and spin manipulation in the design of the next generation spintronics\ndevices.\nIn this experimental work, two sets of experiments were prepared to detect the\nSpin Hall Effect in metallic systems. The first set of experiments aims to extract Spin\nHall Effect from Double Hall Effect in micrometer size metal thin film patterns. Our\nexperiments proved that the Spin Hall Effect signal was much smaller than the theoretically calculated value due to higher electrical resistivity in evaporated thin\nfilms. The second set of experiments employs a multi-step process. It combines micro\nfabrication and electrochemical method to fabricate a perpendicular ferromagnet rod as\na spin injector. Process description and various techniques to improve the measurement\nsensitivity are presented. Measurement results in aluminum, gold and copper are\npresented in Chapters III, IV and V. Some new experiments are suggested in Chapters\nV and VI.