掺铌SrTiO_3中的逆自旋霍尔效应

采用磁控溅射法在未掺杂和掺杂的SrTiO_3基片上沉积了NiFe薄膜,通过翻转测试法分离出掺杂样品中的自旋整流电压和逆自旋霍尔电压.研究结果表明:在未掺杂的SrTiO_3基片中,翻转前后测试的电压曲线基本一致,为NiFe薄膜自旋整流效应产生的电压.对于掺Nb浓度x为0.028, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2的SrTiO_3基片,分离出的逆自旋霍尔电压随掺杂浓度增加而减小,在掺杂浓度为0.15和0.2的样品中没有探测到明显的逆自旋霍尔电压.本文的结果表明,在SrTiO_3中掺入强自旋轨道耦合的杂质,通过掺杂浓度可以实现对SrTiO_3中逆自旋霍尔效应的调控,这类可调控的自旋相关研究为自旋电子器件的研究和开发提供了更多的可能性,具有很大的潜在应用价值.     

Spin current transmission in Co1-xTbx films

We investigate the spin to charge conversion phenomena in Y₃Fe₅O₁₂/Pt/Co_1-xTb_x/Pt multilayers by both the spin pumping and spin Seebeck effects.We find that the spin transport efficiency is irrelevant to magnetization states of the perpendicular magnetized Co;Tb;films,which can be attributed to the symmetry requirement of the inverse transverse spin Hall effect.Furthermore,the spin transmission efficiency is significantly affected by the film concentration,revealing the dominant role of extrinsic impurity scattering caused by Tb impurity.The present results provide further guidance for enhancing the spin transport efficiency and developing spintronic devices.     

Intrinsic spin hall effect induced by quantum phase transition in HgCdTe quantum wells

The spin Hall effect can be induced by both extrinsic impurity scattering and intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in the electronic structure. The HgTe/CdTe quantum well has a quantum phase transition where the electronic structure changes from normal to inverted. We show that the intrinsic spin Hall effect of the conduction band vanishes on the normal side, while it is finite on the inverted side. By tuning the Cd content, the well width, or the bias electric field across the quantum well, the intrinsic spin Hall effect can be switched on or off and tuned into resonance under experimentally accessible conditions.     

自旋轨道耦合系统中的自旋流与自旋霍尔效应

作为自旋电子学的重要研究内容,如何在固态系统中产生、操控以及探测自旋流引起了研究人员的广泛兴趣.基于自旋轨道耦合的自旋霍尔效应为在非磁性半导体中产生自旋流提供了一种有效途径.然而,在具有自旋轨道耦合的系统中,自旋流并不守恒.如何理解这点并恰当地表述相应的连续性方程,成为自旋输运研究的基本问题之一.本文主要综述自旋轨道耦合系统中自旋流与自旋霍尔效应方面的研究进展.引入SU(2)规范势后,自旋流满足协变形式的连续性方程,该方程保证了SU(2)Kubo公式在不同规范固定下的自洽性.利用SU(2)场强张量,可以直接得到自旋密度和自旋流在SU(2)外场中受到的白旋力,该力在只有U(1)磁场时对应于Stern-Gerlach力.由于依赖杂质散射的外在自旋霍尔效应很难被利用,内在自旋霍尔效应的概念被提出:在非磁半导体中,U(1)电场会诱导出自旋流并导致系统边缘处的自旋积累.自旋霍尔效应已经在半导体和金属材料中被观察到.虽然在干净的二维电子气中自旋霍尔电导率是一普适常数e/8π,但杂质对它的影响却引起了人们的高度关注.通过引入退相干效应,自旋霍尔效应中杂质效应的一些令人困惑的理论结果,则得到清晰的解释.此外,本文还将介绍具有层间隧穿的双层二维电子气中的自旋输运现象.在能量简并点附近,自旋霍尔电导率和隧穿白旋电导率均会出现共振现象.当两层间的杂质势强度存在差异时,隧穿自旋电导率随门压的变化曲线呈现出非对称性,显示出自旋二极管效应.     

自旋轨道耦合系统中的自旋流与自旋霍尔效应

作为自旋电子学的重要研究内容,如何在固态系统中产生、操控以及探测自旋流引起了研究人员的广泛兴趣。基于自旋轨道耦合的自旋霍尔效应为在非磁性半导体中产生自旋流提供了一种有效途径。然而,在具有自旋轨道耦合的系统中,自旋流并不守恒。如何理解这点并恰当地表述相应的连续性方程,成为自旋输运研究的基本问题之一。本文主要综述自旋轨道耦合系统中自旋流与自旋霍尔效应方面的研究进展。引入SU(2)规范势后,自旋流满足协变形式的连续性方程,该方程保证了SU(2)Kubo公式在不同规范固定下的自洽性。利用SU(2)场强张量,可以直接得到自旋密度和自旋流在SU(2)外场中受到的自旋力,该力在只有U(1)磁场时对应于Stern-Gerlach力。由于依赖杂质散射的外在自旋霍尔效应很难被利用,内在自旋霍尔效应的概念被提出:在非磁半导体中,U(1)电场会诱导出自旋流并导致系统边缘处的自旋积累。自旋霍尔效应已经在半导体和金属材料中被观察到。虽然在干净的二维电子气中自旋霍尔电导率是一普适常数e/8π,但杂质对它的影响却引起了人们的高度关注。通过引入退相干效应,自旋霍尔效应中杂质效应的一些令人困惑的理论结果,则得到清晰的解释。此外,本文还将介绍具有层间隧穿的双层二维电子气中的自旋输运现象。在能量简并点附近,自旋霍尔电导率和隧穿自旋电导率均会出现共振现象。当两层间的杂质势强度存在差异时,隧穿自旋电导率随门压的变化曲线呈现出非对称性,显示出自旋二极管效应。     

An Extended Extrinsic Mechanism for Anomalous Hall Effect

The extrinsic mechanism for anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnets is extended to include the contributions both from spin-orbit-dependent impurity scattering and from the spin-orbit coupling induced by external electric fields. The results obtained suggest that, within the framework of the extrinsic mechanisms, the anomalous Hall current in a ferromagnet may also contain asubstantial amount of dissipationless contribution independent of impurity scattering. After the contribution from the spin-orbit coupling induced by external electric fields is included, the total anomalous Hall conductivity is about two times larger than that due to spin-orbit dependent impurity scatterings.     

Spin cloud induced around an elastic scatterer by the intrinsic spin hall effect

Similar to the Landauer electric dipole created around an impurity by the electric current, a spin polarized cloud of electrons can be induced by the intrinsic spin Hall effect near a spin independent elastic scatterer. It is shown that in the ballistic range around the impurity, such a cloud appears in the case of Rashba spin-orbit interaction, even though the bulk spin Hall current is absent.     

X-Ray photoemission study of CuIr2S4: Ir3+-Ir4+ charge ordering and the effect of light illumination

We have studied the electronic structure of the spinel-type compound CuIr2S4 using x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS). CuIr2S4 undergoes a metal-insulator transition (MIT) at approximately 226 K. In going from the metallic to insulating states, the valence-band photoemission spectrum shows a gap opening at the Fermi level and a rigid-band shift of approximately 0.15 eV. In addition, the Ir 4f core-level spectrum is dramatically changed by the MIT. The Ir 4f line shape of the insulating state can be decomposed into two contributions, consistent with the charge disproportionation of Ir3+:Ir4+=1:1. XPS measurements under laser irradiation indicate that the charge disproportionation of CuIr2S4 is very robust against photo-excitation in contrast to Cs2Au2Br6 which shows photo-induced valence transition.     

Intrinsic spin and orbital angular momentum Hall effect

A generalized definition of intrinsic and extrinsic transport coefficients is introduced. We show that transport coefficients from the intrinsic origin are solely determined by local electronic structure, and thus the intrinsic spin Hall effect is not a transport phenomenon. The intrinsic spin Hall current is always accompanied by an equal but opposite intrinsic orbital angular momentum Hall current. We prove that the intrinsic spin Hall effect does not induce a spin accumulation at the edge of the sample or near the interface.     

Orbitronics: the intrinsic orbital current in p-doped silicon

The spin Hall effect depends crucially on the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling of the energy band. Because of the smaller spin-orbit coupling in silicon, the spin Hall effect is expected to be much reduced. We show that an electric field in p-doped silicon can induce a dissipationless orbital current in a fashion reminiscent of the spin Hall effect. The vertex correction from impurity scattering vanishes and the effect is robust against disorder. The orbital Hall effect leads to accumulation of local orbital momentum at the edge of the sample, and can be detected by the Kerr effect.     

Incommensurate structural correlations in the disordered spin-dimer state induced by X-Ray and electron irradiation in CuIr2S4

Irradiation with approximately 10 keV x rays or medium-energy electrons destroys long-range order of Ir spin dimers in CuIr2S4 while preserving the dimers locally. We find that as the order is destroyed, a new type of incommensurate structural correlations appears. This represents an intriguing example of order from disorder phenomenon, in which a previously unknown incommensurate order appears in the radiation-induced disordered state. These results suggest that two competing instabilities, one of which can be suppressed by radiation, are present in the system. Otherwise unrealized structural or electronic states can, therefore, be revealed in correlated systems by x-ray or electron irradiation.     

Current-induced polarization and the spin Hall effect at room temperature

Electrically induced electron spin polarization is imaged in n-type ZnSe epilayers using Kerr rotation spectroscopy. Despite no evidence for an electrically induced internal magnetic field, current-induced in-plane spin polarization is observed with characteristic spin lifetimes that decrease with doping density. The spin Hall effect is also observed, indicated by an electrically induced out-of-plane spin polarization with opposite sign for spins accumulating on opposite edges of the sample. The spin Hall conductivity is estimated as 3+/-1.5 Omega(-1) m(-1)/|e| at 20 K, which is consistent with the extrinsic mechanism. Both the current-induced spin polarization and the spin Hall effect are observed at temperatures from 10 to 295 K.     

Characteristics of anomalous Hall effect in spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gases in the presence of both intrinsic, extrinsic, and external electric-field induced spinben orbit couplings

The various competing contributions to the anomalous Hall effect in spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gases in the presence of both intrinsic, extrinsic and external electric-field induced spin-orbit coupling were investigated theoretically. Based on a unified semiclassical theoretical approach, it is shown that the total anomalous Hall conductivity can be expressed as the sum of three distinct contributions in the presence of these competing spin-orbit interactions, namely an intrinsic contribution determined by the Berry curvature in the momentum space, an extrinsic contribution determined by the modified Bloch band group velocity and an extrinsic contribution determined by spin-orbit-dependent impurity scattering. The characteristics of these competing contributions are discussed in detail in the paper.     

Sign changes of intrinsic spin Hall effect in semiconductors and simple metals: first-principles calculations

First-principles calculations are applied to study spin Hall effect in semiconductors and simple metals. We found that intrinsic spin Hall conductivity (ISHC) in realistic materials shows rich sign changes, which may be used to distinguish the effect from the extrinsic one. The calculated ISHC in n-doped GaAs can be well compared with experiment, and it differs from the sign obtained from the extrinsic effect. On the other hand, the ISHC in W and Au, which shows opposite sign, respectively, is robust and not sensitive to the disorder.     

Influence of impurity-induced spin-orbit scattering on persistent spin helix

The persistent spin helix discovered in intrinsic spin-orbit coupled systems previously is reexamined using the motion equations of Green's functions by considering the effect of extrinsic impurity-induced spin-orbit coupling. We find both the intrinsic and extrinsic spin-orbit couplings can increase the excitation energy of spin helix. They together can reduce drastically the lifetime of the spin helix, making it severely departure from the ideal infinite value. The effect of impurity density on spin helix is also analyzed. The results may be helpful to understand experimental measurements on spin helix.     

Nonequilibrium spin Hall accumulation in ballistic semiconductor nanostructures

We demonstrate that the flow of a longitudinal unpolarized current through a ballistic two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling will induce a nonequilibrium spin accumulation which has opposite signs for the two lateral edges and is, therefore, the principal observable signature of the spin Hall effect in two-probe semiconductor nanostructures. The magnitude of its out-of-plane component is gradually diminished by static disorder, while it can be enhanced by an in-plane transverse magnetic field. Moreover, our prediction of the longitudinal component of the spin Hall accumulation, which is insensitive to the reversal of the bias voltage, offers direct evidence to differentiate experimentally between the extrinsic, intrinsic, and mesoscopic spin Hall mechanisms.     

Spin Hall effect induced by resonant scattering on impurities in metals

The spin Hall effect is a promising way for transforming charge currents into spin currents in spintronic devices. Large values of the spin Hall angle, the characteristic parameter of the yield of this transformation, have been recently found in noble metals doped with nonmagnetic impurities. We show that this can be explained by resonant scattering off impurity states split by the spin-orbit interaction. By using as an example copper doped with 5d impurities we describe the general conditions and provide a guide for experimentalists for obtaining the largest effects.     

An Anderson Impurity Interacting with the Helical Edge States in a Quantum Spin Hall Insulator

Using the natural orbitals renormalization group(NORG)method,we investigate the screening of the local spin of an Anderson impurity interacting with the helical edge states in a quantum spin Hall insulator.It is found that there is a local spin formed at the impurity site and the local spin is completel.y screened by electrons in the quantum spin Hall insulator.Meanwhile,the local spin is screened dominantly by a single active natural orbital.We then show that the Kondo screening mechanism becomes transparent and simple in the framework of the natural orbitals formalism.We project the active natural orbital respectively into real space and momentum space to characterize its structure.We conilrm the spin-momentum locking property of the edge states based on the occupancy of a Bloch state on the edge to which the impurity couples.Furthermore,we study the dynamical property of the active natural orbital represented by the local density of states,from which we observe the Kondo resonance peak.     

Dynamics of Skyrmion crystals in metallic thin films

We study the collective dynamics of the Skyrmion crystal in thin films of ferromagnetic metals resulting from the nontrivial Skyrmion topology. It is shown that the current-driven motion of the crystal reduces the topological Hall effect and the Skyrmion trajectories bend away from the direction of the electric current (the Skyrmion Hall effect). We find a new dissipation mechanism in noncollinear spin textures that can lead to a much faster spin relaxation than Gilbert damping, calculate the dispersion of phonons in the Skyrmion crystal, and discuss the effects of impurity pinning of Skyrmions.     

Spin Hall effect in doped semiconductor structures

In this Letter we present a microscopic theory of the extrinsic spin Hall effect based on the diagrammatic perturbation theory. Side-jump and skew-scattering contributions are explicitly taken into account to calculate the spin Hall conductivity, and we show that their effects scale as sigma(xy)SJ/sigma(xy)SS approximately (h/tau)/epsilonF, with tau being the transport relaxation time. Motivated by recent experimental work we apply our theory to n- and p-doped 3D and 2D GaAs structures, obtaining sigma(s)/sigma(c) approximately 10(-3)-10(-4), where sigma(s(c)) is the spin Hall (charge) conductivity, which is in reasonable agreement with the recent experimental results of Kato et al. [Science 306, 1910 (2004)] in n-doped 3D GaAs system.