Influence of epitaxial growth on spin current transmission of NiO films

This letter reports the effect of the epitaxial growth of NiO films on its spin current transmission. Two sample series of Pt/NiO/CoFeB, including epitaxial and polycrystalline NiO, were prepared using different deposition conditions. The spin current transmission of NiO is evaluated using the thermo-spin effects in the trilayers. Epitaxial NiO exhibits a non-monotonic behavior in the NiO thickness dependence of spin current transmission, while this behavior is smeared out in polycrystalline NiO. The non-monotonic behavior implies the presence of multiple spin transport mechanisms, which becomes apparent with epitaxial growth.