Quantitative analysis of the weak anti-localization effect in ultrathin bismuth films

Abstract

Magnetic-field dependence of conductivity in ultrathin Bi films is measured in applied magnetic fields up to 9 T, in both directions, perpendicular and parallel to the film plane, at temperatures down to 0.4 K, and analyzed in terms of the weak anti-localization theory in twodimensional systems. With the reduction of film thickness, the classical magnetoresistance effect is completely suppressed, and only the weak anti-localization effect is observed. The parameters extracted from the analysis allow the study of the contribution of the different scattering mechanisms to the electronic transport properties in ultrathin Bi films. In particular, the thicknessindependent spin-orbit scattering length indicates that the spin-orbit split surface states dominate the transport in the ultrathin-film limit.

Sensitively Temperature-Dependent Spin–Orbit Coupling in SrIrO3Thin Films

“…The B i here was around 0.02-0.03T, leading an inelastic scattering length l i at a scale of 200nm. It is close to those of ultrathin bismuth film 23 and graphene 24 at mesoscopic scale. Given that a mesoscopic system is defined by the sample size dimension over the inelastic scattering length, our SrIrO 3 films were mesoscopic systems in the growth direction since the thickness were remarkably smaller than the inelastic scattering length.…”

Origin of inverse Rashba-Edelstein effect detected at the Cu/Bi interface using lateral spin valves

“…However, this value is far from λ Bi = 20 nm obtained by weak antilocalization (WAL) measurements in Bi evaporated under the same conditions [32][33][34][35]. The same occurs at room temperature where from the measured values of η = 0.11 ± 0.04 and ρ Bi = 830 μ cm we extract a spin-diffusion length of λ Bi = 0.11 ± 0.05 nm.…”

Erratum: Role of the surface states in the magnetotransport properties of ultrathin bismuth films [Phys. Rev. B82, 125326 (2010)]

“…14 The mo-bility i =1/ n i q i R i and the carrier density n i for each band obtained from fits to the three band model for the 100 nm, 30 nm, and 10 nm-thick films for selected temperatures ͑T = 5 K and T =50 K͒ are listed in Table I. For the 10 nmthick film the low-temperature magnetoresistance ͑T Յ 5 K͒ presents an extra contribution coming from the localization effects ͑weak antilocalization͒ 24 which has been taken into account in the corresponding analysis.…”