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Spin Hall effect in the high-resistivity high-entropy alloy Al-Cr-Mo-W

Jyoti Yadav1,2, Felix Janus2, Tiago de Oliveira Schneider2, Shalini Sharma3, Daniel Schröter2, and Markus Meinert2,*

  • 1University of Lille, Institute of Electronics, Microelectronics and Nanotechnology, 59000 Lille, France
  • 2New Materials Electronics Group, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Merckstraße 25, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany
  • 3Advanced Thin Film Technology Group, Institute of Materials Science, Peter-Grünberg-Straße 2, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany

  • *Contact author: markus.meinert@tu-darmstadt.de
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Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 064050 – Published 15 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/s16p-tvd7

Abstract

We study thin films of the high-entropy alloy system Alx(Cr-Mo-W)1−x, grown on Ta seed layers by magnetron cosputtering. Between x=0.2 and x=0.6, a resistivity larger than 100μΩcm is achieved, with a peak of 180μΩcm at x=0.5. Around the stoichiometric composition Al-Cr-Mo-W, the alloy forms a bcc solid solution. The harmonic Hall method was used to characterize the spin Hall angle of the alloy series, where a maximum spin Hall angle of θ=−0.12±0.01 is observed for x=0.25. The implied spin Hall conductivity is σSH≈−72000ℏ/(2e) S/m. The experimental results show excellent agreement with density-functional-theory calculations, which show similar trends and values. The results demonstrate that high-entropy alloys with a main-group-element component can form a simple crystal structure and show high resistivity. This suggests that a whole new class of materials for spin Hall device engineering is available with simple methods.

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Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 064050– Published 15 June, 2026
  • Received 15 October 2025
  • Revised 23 February 2026
  • Accepted 19 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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