Abstract
Spin Hall effect (SHE) is studied with first-principles relativistic band calculations for platinum, which is one of the most important materials for metallic SHE and spintronics. We find that intrinsic spin Hall conductivity (SHC) is as large as at low temperature and decreases down to at room temperature. It is due to the resonant contribution from the spin-orbit splitting of the doubly degenerated bands at high-symmetry and points near the Fermi level. By modeling these near degeneracies by an effective Hamiltonian, we show that SHC has a peak near the Fermi energy and that the vertex correction due to impurity scattering vanishes. We therefore argue that the large SHE observed experimentally in platinum is of intrinsic nature.
- Received 19 April 2007
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.096401
©2008 American Physical Society