Fachgruppe Nanostrukturierte Materialien    

We have investigated the damping in the ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) of yttrium iron garnet (YIG) caused by spin pumping into adjacent conducting materials, namely, Pt and the conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). By a systematic study which also includes multilayers in which the conducting layer is separated from YIG by an insulator, we can show that a considerable part of the damping can be attributed to the so-called radiation damping which originates from the interaction of the magnetic fields caused by the precessing magnetization with the conducting layer. Especially, when PEDOT:PSS is used as a spin sink, the observed damping must be attributed completely to radiation damping, and no contribution from spin pumping can be identified. These results demonstrate that the Gilbert damping as a measure of spin pumping can only be used when careful control experiments accompany the investigation.