Angle resolved relaxation of spin currents by antiferromagnets in spin valves

Abstract

We observe and analyze tunable relaxation of a pure spin current by an antiferromagnet in spin-valves. This is achieved by carefully controlling the angle between a resonantly excited ferromagnetic layer pumping the spin current and the N\'eel vector of the antiferromagnetic layer. The effect is observed as an angle-dependent spin-pumping contribution to the ferromagnetic resonance linewidth. An interplay between spin-mixing conductance and, often disregarded, longitudinal spin conductance is found to underlie our observations, which is in agreement with a recent prediction for related ferromagnetic spin valves.