This past week, Steve gave a contributed talk on theoretical calculations of strain dependent spin orbit splitting in PtMn₃ and its effect on intrinsic transport properties.

Abstract: Efficient charge-to-spin current conversion in materials is crucial to the development of spintronic memory or logic devices. A promising and established method of spin current generation is the injection of charge current through a crystal with a strong intrinsic spin Hall conductivity. Recently, a class of antiferromagnets with the composition XMn₃, where X={Pt, Ir, Rh}, have been identified as materials with large intrinsic spin Hall conductivities stemming from their non-trivial spin order. The exact role of antiferromagnetic spin texture on the generated spin current, however, is not fully understood. Temperature-dependent triangular AFM – collinear AFM phase transitions in chemically ordered PtMn₃ can be exploited to probe this directly. Here, we report on the growth and magneto-transport measurement of ordered PtMn3 thin films. Harmonic transport measurement techniques utilizing spin-transfer torques were performed to determine the spin and anomalous Hall conductivities at select temperatures.

Peter gave an invited talk at the recent college of engineering graduate student coffee hour on the novel and distortion dependent magnetic properties of entropy-stabilized oxides. Every two weeks, the graduate student council gives two graduate students the opportunity to give talks at this cross-department meeting.