FeRh attracts intensive interest in antiferromagnetic (AFM) spintronics due to its first-order phase transition between the AFM and ferromagnetic (FM) phase, which is unique for exploring spin dynamics in coexisting phases. Here, we report lateral spin pumping by which angular momentum is transferred from FM domains into the AFM matrix during the phase transition of ultrathin FeRh films. In addition, FeRh is verified to be both an efficient spin generator and an efficient spin sink, by electrically probing vertical spin pumping from FM-FeRh into Pt and from Py into FeRh, respectively. A dramatic enhancement of damping related to AFM-FeRh is observed during the phase transition, which we prove to be dominated by lateral spin pumping across the FM/AFM interface. The discovery of lateral spin pumping provides insight into the spin dynamics of magnetic thin films with mixed-phases, and the significantly modulated damping advances its potential applications, such as ultrafast spintronics.

Replacing all protons on a polymer by deuterium has a dramatic impact on spin-dependent properties of the material in devices.

Certain species of living creatures are known to orientate themselves in the geomagnetic field. Given the small magnitude of approximately 48 µT, the underlying quantum mechanical phenomena are expected to exhibit coherence times approaching the millisecond regime. In this contribution, we show sensitivity of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) to magnetic fields far below Earth's magnetic field, suggesting that coherence times of the spins of charge-carrier pairs in these devices can be similarly long. By electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) experiments, a lower bound for the coherence time can be assessed directly. Moreover, this technique offers the possibility to determine the distribution of hyperfine fields within the organic semiconductor layer. We extend this technique to a material system exhibiting both fluorescence and phosphorescence, demonstrating stable anticorrelation between optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) spectra in the singlet (fluorescence) and triplet (phosphorescence) channel. The experiments demonstrate the extreme sensitivity of OLEDs to both static as well as dynamic magnetic fields and suggest that coherent spin precession processes of Coulombically bound electron spin pairs may play a crucial role in the magnetoreceptive ability of living creatures.