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We present magnetic characterization, charge resistivity, and optical photoluminescence measurements on amorphous yttrium iron oxide thin films (a-Y–Fe–O), with supporting comparisons to amorphous germanium (a-Ge) films. We measured magnetic properties with both SQUID magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectometry. These results not only confirm that a-Y–Fe–O is a disordered magnetic material with strong predominantly antiferromagnetic exchange interactions and a high degree of frustration, but also that it is best understood electrically as a disordered semiconductor. As with amorphous germanium, a-Y–Fe–O obeys expectations for variable-range hopping through localized electron states over a wide range of temperature. We also clarify the consequences of charge transport through such a semiconducting medium for non-local voltage measurements intended to probe spin transport in nominally insulating magnetic materials. We further compare non-local resistance measurements made with “quasi-dc” automated current reversal to ac measurements made with a lock-in amplifier. These show that the “quasi-dc” measurement has an effective ac current excitation with frequency up to approximately 22 Hz, and that this effective ac excitation can cause artifacts in these measurements including incorrect sign of the non-local resistance. This comprehensive investigation of non-local resistance measurements in a-Y–Fe–O shows no evidence of spin transport on micrometer length scales, which is contrary to our original work, and in line with more recent investigations by other groups. 

Spin-to-charge conversion and the reverse process are now critically important physical processes for a wide range of fundamental and applied studies in spintronics. Here, we experimentally demonstrate effective spin-to-charge conversion in thermally evaporated chromium thin films using the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect (LSSE). We present LSSE results measured near room temperature for Cr films with thicknesses from 2 to 11 nm, deposited at room temperature on bulk polycrystalline yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) substrates. Comparison of the measured LSSE voltage, [Formula: see text], in Cr to a sputtered Pt film at the same nominal thickness grown on a matched YIG substrate shows that both films show comparably large spin-to-charge conversion. As previously shown for other forms of Cr, the LSSE signal for evaporated Cr/YIG shows the opposite sign compared to Pt, indicating that Cr has a negative spin Hall angle, [Formula: see text]. We also present measured charge resistivity, [Formula: see text], of the same evaporated Cr films on YIG. These values are large compared to Pt and comparable to [Formula: see text]-W at a similar thickness. Non-monotonic behavior of both [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] with film thickness suggests that spin-to-charge conversion in evaporated Cr, which we expect has a different strain state than previously investigated sputtered films, could be modified by spin density wave antiferromagnetism in Cr.