The general theme of the thesis is the interplay between magnetization dynamics and spin transport. The main presentation is divided into three parts. The first part is devoted to deepening our understanding on magnetic damping of ferromagnetic metals, which is one of the long-standing issues in conventional spintronics that has not been completely understood. For a nonuniformly-magnetized ferromagnetic metal, we find that the damping is nonlocal and is enhanced as compared to that in the uniform case. It is therefore necessary to generalize the conventional Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation to include the additional damping. In a different vein, the decay mechanism of the uniform precession mode has been investigated. We point out the important role of spin-conserving electron-magnon interaction in the relaxation process by quantitatively examining its contribution to the ferromagnetic resonance linewidth. In the second part, a transport theory is developed for magnons which, in addition to conduction electrons, can also carry and propagate spin angular momentum via the magnon current. We demonstrate that the mutual conversion of magnon current and spin current may take place at magnetic interfaces. We also predict a novel magnon-mediated electric drag effect in a metal/magnetic-insulator/metal trilayer structure. This study may pave the way to the new area of insulator-based spintronics. In the third part of thesis, particular attention is paid to the influence the spin orbit coupling on both charge and spin transport. We theoretically investigate magnetotransport anisotropy and the conversion relations of spin and charge currents in various magnetic systems, and apply our results to interpret recent experiments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/333352 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Zhang, Shulei |
| Contributors | Zhang, Shufeng, Wang, Weigang, LeRoy, Brian, Mazumdar, Sumit, Stafford, Charles |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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