Orbital relaxation length from first-principles scattering calculations

Abstract

The orbital Hall effect generates a current of orbital angular momentum perpendicular to a charge current. Experiments suggest that this orbital current decays on a long length scale that is of the order of the spin flip diffusion length or longer. We examine this suggestion using first-principles quantum mechanical scattering calculations to study the decay of orbital currents injected from an orbitally-polarized lead into thermally disordered bulk systems of selected transition metals. We find that the decay occurs over only a few atomic layers. On this length scale the orbital current may be converted into a spin current if the spin Hall angle is sufficiently large, as for Pt. In Cu, Cr and V with small spin Hall angles, the conversion into a spin current is negligible in the bulk and significant conversion only occurs at interfaces.