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Polaron spin current transport in organic semiconductors


Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Watanabe, S 
Ando, K 
Kang, K 
Mooser, S 
Vaynzof, Y 

Abstract

In spintronics, pure spin currents play a key role in transmitting, processing and storing information. A pure spin current is a flow of electron spin angular momentum without a simultaneous flow of charge current. It can be carried by conduction electrons or magnons and has been studied in many inorganic metals, semiconductors and insulators, but not yet in organic semiconductors. Charge carriers in π-conjugated organic materials are localized spin-1/2 polarons which move by hopping, but the mechanisms of their spin transport and relaxation are not well understood. Here we use ferromagnetic resonance spin pumping in a ferromagnet/conjugated polymer/nonmagnetic spin-sink trilayer to demonstrate the ability of polarons to carry pure spin currents over hundreds of nanometres with long spin relaxation times of up to a millisecond and to exhibit Hanle precession. By systematically comparing charge and spin transport on the same trilayer we show that spin-orbit coupling mediates spin relaxation at room temperature.

Description

Keywords

51 Physical Sciences, 5104 Condensed Matter Physics

Journal Title

Nature Physics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1745-2473
1745-2481

Volume Title

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/G060738/1)
This work was supported by the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan through its “Funding Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researchers”, PRESTO-JST “Innovative nano-electronics through interdisciplinary collaboration among material, device and system layers”, the Asahi Glass Foundation and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).