Nonlocal magnon spin transport in NiFe$_2$O$_4$ thin films

Abstract

We report magnon spin transport in nickel ferrite (NiFe$_2$O$_4$, NFO)/ platinum (Pt) bilayer systems at room temperature. A nonlocal geometry is employed, where the magnons are excited by the spin Hall effect or by the Joule heating induced spin Seebeck effect at the Pt injector, and detected at a certain distance away by the inverse spin Hall effect at the Pt detector. The dependence of the nonlocal magnon spin signals as a function of the magnetic field is closely related to the NFO magnetization behavior. In contrast, we observe that the magnetoresistance measured locally at the Pt injector does not show a clear relation with the average NFO magnetization. We estimate the magnon spin relaxation length to be 3.1 $\pm$ 0.2 $\mu$m in the investigated NFO samples.