Tailoring charge to spin conversion in novel materials for efficient spintronics

Abstract

The charge-to-spin conversion efficiency is the crux of the future of spintronics and electronics as it enables the generation and employment of both spin and electric current in the same device. Usually, this conversion efficiency is an intrinsic material property, which cannot be easily modified without invoking chemical or structural changes in the underlying system. This thesis explores materials with nontrivial band structures as potential active spintronics materials and explores a novel method of tunable spin-to-charge conversion, which will provide extra flexibility in spintronics device design. First, we show the successful modulation of charge-spin conversion efficiency (by more than 5X) via the metal-insulator transition in a quintessential strongly correlated electron compound vanadium dioxide (VO₂). We then show that by engineering the chemical order in the newly discovered magnetic Weyl semimetal (MWSM), Co₂MnGa, we can control the spin-charge conversion. Tailoring this interconversion efficiency will lead to energy-efficient and highly tunable memory and computing devices.