Abrupt enhancement of spin–orbit scattering time in ultrathin semimetallic SrIrO3 close to the metal–insulator transition

We report a magnetotransport study of spin relaxation in 1.4–21.2 nm epitaxial SrIrO3 thin films coherently strained on SrTiO3 substrates. Fully charge compensated semimetallic transport has been observed in SrIrO3 films thicker than 1.6 nm, where the charge mobility at 10 K increases from 45 cm2/V s to 150 cm2/V s with decreasing film thickness. In the two-dimensional regime, the charge dephasing and spin–orbit scattering lengths extracted from the weak localization/anti-localization effects show power-law dependence on temperature, pointing to the important role of electron–electron interaction. The spin–orbit scattering time τso exhibits an Elliott–Yafet mechanism dominated quasi-linear dependence on the momentum relaxation time τp. Ultrathin films approaching the critical thickness of metal–insulator transition show an abrupt enhancement in τso, with the corresponding τso/τp about 7.6 times of the value for thicker films. A likely origin for such unusual enhancement is the onset of strong electron correlation, which leads to charge gap formation and suppresses spin scattering.