Magneto-Optical Detection of the Orbital Hall Effect in Chromium
Igor Lyalin, Sanaz Alikhah, Marco Berritta, Peter M. Oppeneer, Roland Kawakami
Abstract
The orbital Hall effect has been theoretically predicted but its direct observation is a challenge. Here, we report the magneto-optical detection of current-induced orbital accumulation at the surface of a light 3d transition metal, Cr. The orbital polarization is in-plane, transverse to the current direction, and scales linearly with current density, consistent with the orbital Hall effect. Comparing the thickness-dependent magneto-optical measurements with ab initio calculations, we estimate an orbital diffusion length in Cr of 6.6±0.6 nm.Received 9 June 2023Accepted 7 September 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.156702© 2023 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasSpintronicsPhysical SystemsThin filmsTechniquesDensity functional calculationsMagneto-optical Kerr effectCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics