Insight into the skew-scattering mechanism of the spin Hall effect: Potential scattering versus spin-orbit scattering

We present a detailed analysis of the skew-scattering contribution to the spin Hall conductivity using an extended version of the resonant scattering model of Fert and Levy [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 157208 (2011)]. For 5d impurities in a Cu host, the proposed phase shift model reproduces the corresponding first-principles calculations. Crucial for that agreement is the consideration of two scattering channels related to p and d impurity states since the discussed mechanism is governed by a subtle interplay between the spin-orbit and potential scattering in both angular-momentum channels. It is shown that the potential scattering strength plays a decisive role for the magnitude of the spin Hall conductivity.