Room temperature gate tunable spin-to-charge conversion in LaCrO₃/SrTiO₃ heterostructures

The emergence of novel spintronics studies focuses on the generation, transmission, and control of a pure spin current through spin-orbit effects. The emergence of novel electronic and magnetic phenomena at the interfaces between polar and non-polar crystalline transition metal complex oxides such as high mobility two-dimensional electron gases (2DEG) provides an ideal platform for the design of spin-to-charge (StC) convertors. At these interfaces, an interface-driven spin-orbit coupling mechanism - the Rashba effect - shows great promise due to its unprecedented StC interconversion efficiency, called inverse Rashba-Edelstein effect (IREE). We report a new type of 2DEG formed at the interface between antiferromagnetic LaCrO₃ and insulating SrTiO₃ heterostructure with StC conversion efficiency. The measured IREE length is up to 0.3 nm which can be modulated by a gate voltage. The frequency and field orientation dependence of IREE response are both consistent with the spin pumping model, from which the spin relaxation time (~30ps) is derived. Our findings launch a new class of oxide-based 2DEGs for future spin orbitronic applications.