Electron scattering enhances orbital transport in amorphous Mn
Abstract
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) is getting more attention as an important information carrier in solids, yet it remains poorly understood how its transport is influenced by scattering. While previous studies on OAM transport examined epitaxial and polycrystalline systems with less frequent scattering, we examine single-layer amorphous Mn films with more frequent scattering. We quantify OAM transport using longitudinal magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements while systematically varying the film thickness and disorder, as gauged by its resistivity (3.6, 5.0, and 7.0 μΩ·m). The complex Kerr angle is undetectable in the relatively weakly resistive films (3.6 μΩ·m), implying the suppression of OAM transport in weakly disordered films. However, in more resistive films (5.0 μΩ·m and 7.0 μΩ·m), the Kerr angle enhances significantly, corresponding to orbital relaxation lengths of 10–15 nm, implying that sufficiently strong disorder scattering enhances OAM transport. Another important source of scattering is the boundary scattering at film surfaces. We find that the sign of the orbital accumulation is abnormal, which is attributed to the interplay between the boundary scattering and the crystal field. Thus, our result illustrates that electron scattering is not necessarily harmful and may even enhance the orbital transport, establishing scattering control as a practical knob for boosting orbitronic functionality.
Citation Information
@article{gyungminchoi2026,
title={Electron scattering enhances orbital transport in amorphous Mn},
author={Gyung-Min Choi and Kyung-Hun Ko and Daegeun Jo and Peter Oppeneer and Hyun-Woo Lee},
journal={Nature Portfolio},
year={2026},
doi={https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9248804/v1}
}
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