Orbital Hanle Magnetoresistance in a <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>3</mml:mn><mml:mi>d</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math> Transition Metal
Giacomo Sala, Hanchen Wang, William Legrand, Pietro Gambardella
Abstract
The Hanle magnetoresistance is a telltale signature of spin precession in nonmagnetic conductors, in which strong spin-orbit coupling generates edge spin accumulation via the spin Hall effect. Here, we report the existence of a large Hanle magnetoresistance in single layers of Mn with weak spin-orbit coupling, which we attribute to the orbital Hall effect. The simultaneous observation of a sizable Hanle magnetoresistance and vanishing small spin Hall magnetoresistance in BiYIG/Mn bilayers corroborates the orbital origin of both effects. We estimate an orbital Hall angle of 0.016, an orbital relaxation time of 2 ps and diffusion length of the order of 2 nm in disordered Mn. Our findings indicate that current-induced orbital moments are responsible for magnetoresistance effects comparable to or even larger than those determined by spin moments, and provide a tool to investigate nonequilibrium orbital transport phenomena.