Spin Seebeck effect through antiferromagnetic NiO

We report temperature-dependent spin-Seebeck measurements on Pt/YIG bilayers and Pt/NiO/YIG trilayers, where YIG (Yttrium iron garnet, Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$) is an insulating ferrimagnet and NiO is an antiferromagnet at low temperatures. The thickness of the NiO layer is varied from 0 to 10 nm. In the Pt/YIG bilayers, the temperature gradient applied to the YIG stimulates dynamic spin injection into the Pt, which generates an inverse spin Hall voltage in the Pt. The presence of a NiO layer dampens the spin injection exponentially with a decay length of $2 \pm 0.6$ nm at 180 K. The decay length increases with temperature and shows a maximum of $5.5 \pm 0.8$ nm at 360 K. The temperature dependence of the amplitude of the spin-Seebeck signal without NiO shows a broad maximum of $6.5 \pm 0.5$ $μ$V/K at 20 K. In the presence of NiO, the maximum shifts sharply to higher temperatures, likely correlated to the increase in decay length. This implies that NiO is most transparent to magnon propagation near the paramagnet-antiferromagnet transition. We do not see the enhancement in spin current driven into Pt reported in other papers when 1-2 nm NiO layers are sandwiched between Pt and YIG.

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