scholarly journals Layer- and gate-tunable spin-orbit coupling in a high-mobility few-layer semiconductor

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. eabe2892
Author(s):  
Dmitry Shcherbakov ◽  
Petr Stepanov ◽  
Shahriar Memaran ◽  
Yaxian Wang ◽  
Yan Xin ◽  
...  

Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is a relativistic effect, where an electron moving in an electric field experiences an effective magnetic field in its rest frame. In crystals without inversion symmetry, it lifts the spin degeneracy and leads to many magnetic, spintronic, and topological phenomena and applications. In bulk materials, SOC strength is a constant. Here, we demonstrate SOC and intrinsic spin splitting in atomically thin InSe, which can be modified over a broad range. From quantum oscillations, we establish that the SOC parameter α is thickness dependent; it can be continuously modulated by an out-of-plane electric field, achieving intrinsic spin splitting tunable between 0 and 20 meV. Unexpectedly, α could be enhanced by an order of magnitude in some devices, suggesting that SOC can be further manipulated. Our work highlights the extraordinary tunability of SOC in 2D materials, which can be harnessed for in operando spintronic and topological devices and applications.

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 1500114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalon Gopinadhan ◽  
Anil Annadi ◽  
Younghyun Kim ◽  
Amar Srivastava ◽  
Brijesh Kumar ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Maryenko ◽  
M. Kawamura ◽  
A. Ernst ◽  
V. K. Dugaev ◽  
E. Ya. Sherman ◽  
...  

AbstractSpin–orbit coupling (SOC) is pivotal for various fundamental spin-dependent phenomena in solids and their technological applications. In semiconductors, these phenomena have been so far studied in relatively weak electron–electron interaction regimes, where the single electron picture holds. However, SOC can profoundly compete against Coulomb interaction, which could lead to the emergence of unconventional electronic phases. Since SOC depends on the electric field in the crystal including contributions of itinerant electrons, electron–electron interactions can modify this coupling. Here we demonstrate the emergence of the SOC effect in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system in a simple band structure MgZnO/ZnO semiconductor. This electron system also features strong electron–electron interaction effects. By changing the carrier density with Mg-content, we tune the SOC strength and achieve its interplay with electron–electron interaction. These systems pave a way to emergent spintronic phenomena in strong electron correlation regimes and to the formation of quasiparticles with the electron spin strongly coupled to the density.


Author(s):  
Men Nguyen Van

Abstract We investigate the plasmon properties in N-layer silicene systems consisting of N, up to 6, parallel single-layer silicene under the application of an out-of-plane electric field, taking into account the spin-orbit coupling within the random-phase approximation. Numerical calculations demonstrate that N undamped plasmon modes, including one in-phase optical and (N-1) out-of-phase acoustic modes, continue mainly outside the single-particle excitation area of the system. As the number of layers increases, the frequencies of plasmonic collective excitations increase and can become much larger than that in single layer silicene, more significant for high-frequency modes. The optical (acoustic) plasmon mode(s) noticeably (slightly) decreases with the increase in the bandgap and weakly depends on the number of layers. We observe that the phase transition of the system weakly affects the plasmon properties, and as the bandgap caused by the spin-orbit coupling equal that caused by the external electric field, the plasmonic collective excitations and their broadening function in multilayer silicene behave similarly to those in multilayer gapless graphene structures. Our investigations show that plasmon curves in the system move toward that in single layer silicene as the separation increases, and the impacts of this factor can be raised by a large number of layers in the system. Finally, we find that the imbalanced carrier density between silicene layers significantly decreases plasmon frequencies, depending on the number of layers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
I. N. Yakovkin

The electronic structure of Au(111) films is studied by means of relativistic DFT calculations. It is found that the twinning of the surface bands, observed in photoemission experiment, does not necessarily correspond to the spin-splitting of the surface states caused by the break of the inversion symmetry at the surface. The twinning of the bands of clean Au(111) films can be obtained within nonrelativistic or scalar-relativistic approximation, so that it is not a result of spin-orbit coupling. However, the spin-orbit coupling does not lead to the spin-splitting of the surface bands. This result is explained by Kramers’ degeneracy, which means that the existence of a surface itself does not destroy the inversion symmetry of the system. The inversion symmetry of the Au(111) film can be broken, for example, by means of adsorption, and a hydrogen monolayer deposited on one face of the film indeed leads to the appearance of the spin-splitting of the bands.


2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (07) ◽  
pp. 649-656
Author(s):  
XI FU ◽  
GUANGHUI ZHOU

We investigate theoretically the spin current and spin current induced electric field in a weak Rashba spin-orbit coupling quantum wire (QW) using a definition for spin current by means of scattering matrix. It is found that there exists two non-zero linear spin current density elements which have oscillation peaks at the center of QW and their strengths can be changed by the number of propagation modes and Rashba constant, respectively. Moreover, the spin current induced electric field has also been calculated and its strength is measurable with present technology with which can be used to detect spin current.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document