American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 16(114), 2015
DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.114.166602
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Charge-to-spin conversion induced by the Rashba-Edelstein effect was directly observed for the first time in samples with no magnetic layer. A spin-polarized positron beam was used to probe the spin polarization of the outermost surface electrons of Bi/Ag/Al_{2}O_{3} and Ag/Bi/Al_{2}O_{3} when charge currents were only associated with the Ag layers. An opposite surface spin polarization was found between Bi/Ag/Al_{2}O_{3} and Ag/Bi/Al_{2}O_{3} samples with the application of a charge current in the same direction. The surface spin polarizations of both systems decreased exponentially with the outermost layer thickness, suggesting the occurrence of spin diffusion from the Bi/Ag interface to the outermost surfaces. This work provides a new technique to measure spin diffusion length.