Giant Spin Hall Effect Induced by Skew Scattering from Bismuth Impurities inside Thin Film CuBi Alloys

We demonstrate that a giant spin Hall effect (SHE) can be induced by introducing a small amount of Bi impurities in Cu. Our analysis, based on a new three-dimensional finite element treatment of spin transport, shows that the sign of the SHE induced by the Bi impurities is negative and its spin Hall (SH) angle amounts to -0.24. Such a negative large SH angle in CuBi alloys can be explained by applying the resonant scattering model proposed by Fert and Levy Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 157208 (2011) to 6p impurities.