Role of spin mixing conductance in spin pumping: Enhancement of spin pumping efficiency in Ta/Cu/Py structures

From spin pumping measurements in Ta/Py devices for different thicknesses of Ta, we determine the spin Hall angle to be 0.021-0.033 and spin diffusion length to be 8 nm in Ta. We have also studied the effect of changing the properties of non-magnet/ferromagnet interface by adding a Cu interlayer. The experimental results show that the effective spin mixing conductance increases in the presence of Cu interlayer for Ta/Cu/Py devices whereas it decreases in Pt/Cu/Py devices. Our findings allow the tunability of the spin pumping efficiency by adding a thin interlayer at the non-magnet/ferromagnet interface. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.