Magnetoelectronic spin echo

Phys Rev Lett. 2003 Oct 17;91(16):166601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.166601. Epub 2003 Oct 17.

Abstract

We predict a spin echo in electron transport through layered ferromagnetic-normal-ferromagnetic metal structures: whereas a spin current polarized perpendicular to the magnetization direction decays when traversing a single homogeneous ferromagnet on the scale of the ferromagnetic spin-coherence length, it partially reappears by adding a second identical but antiparallel ferromagnet. This reentrant transverse spin current resembles the spin-echo effect in the magnetization of nuclei under pulsed excitations. We propose an experimental setup to measure the spin echo.