Two key properties of β-W have been well-established: the high electrical resistivity and the giant spin Hall effect. 
Although the exact value depends on the preparation conditions, β-W has an electrical resistivity of at least five to ten times higher than that of α-W (5.3 μΩ.cm), and this high conductivity will remain almost unchanged in a temperature range of 5 to 380 K, making β-W a potential thin film resistor while α-W is a thin film conductor. 
Thin films of β-W display a giant spin Hall effect with a spin Hall angle of 0.30 ± 0.02 and a spin-diffusion length of around 3.5 nm. In contrast, α-W exhibits a much smaller spin Hall angle of less than 0.07 and a comparable spin-diffusion length. In the spin Hall effect, the application of a longitudinal electric current through a nonmagnetic material generates a transverse spin current due to the spin–orbit interaction, and the spin Hall angle is defined as the ratio of the transverse spin current density and the longitudinal electric current density. The spin Hall angle of β-W is large enough to generate spin torques capable of flipping or setting the magnetization of adjacent magnetic layers into precession by means of the spin Hall effect.