Nonlocal magnon spin transport in yttrium iron garnet with tantalum and platinum spin injection/detection electrodes

We study the magnon spin transport in the magnetic insulator yttrium iron garnet (YIG) in a nonlocal experiment and compare the magnon spin excitation and detection for the heavy metal paramagnetic electrodes platinum (Pt vertical bar YIG vertical bar Pt) and tantalum (Ta vertical bar YIG vertical bar Ta). The electrical injection and detection processes rely on the (inverse) spin Hall effect in the heavy metals and the conversion between the electron spin and magnon spin at the heavy metal vertical bar YIG interface. Pt and Ta possess opposite signs of the spin Hall angle. Furthermore, their heterostructures with YIG have different interface properties, i.e. spin mixing conductances. By varying the distance between injector and detector, the magnon spin transport is studied. Using a circuit model based on the diffusion-relaxation transport theory, a similar magnon relaxation length of similar to 10 mu m was extracted from both Pt and Ta devices. By changing the injector and detector material from Pt to Ta, the influence of interface properties on the magnon spin transport has been observed. For Ta devices on YIG the spin mixing conductance is reduced compared with Pt devices, which is quantitatively consistent when comparing the dependence of the nonlocal signal on the injector-detector distance with the prediction from the circuit model.