Thermally driven anomalous Hall effect transitions in FeRh

Abstract

Materials exhibiting controllable magnetic phase transitions are currently in demand for many spintronics applications. Here we investigate from first principles the electronic structure and intrinsic anomalous Hall, spin Hall and anomalous Nernst response properties of the FeRh metallic alloy which undergoes a thermally driven antiferromagnetic-to-ferromagnetic phase transition. We show that the energy band structures and underlying Berry curvatures have important signatures in the various Hall effects. Specifically, the suppression of the anomalous Hall and Nernst effects in the AFM state and a sign change in the spin Hall conductivity across the transition are found. It is suggested that the FeRh can be used a spin current detector capable of differentiating the spin Hall effect from other anomalous transverse effects. The implications of this material and its thermally driven phases as a spin current detection scheme are also discussed.