Electrical controllable spin valves in a zigzag silicene nanoribbon ferromagnetic junction

We propose two possible spin valves based on a zigzag silicene nanoribbon(ZSR) ferromagnetic junction. By using the Landauer–B u¨tikker formula, we calculate the spin-resolved conductance spectrum of the system and find that the spin transport is crucially dependent on the band structure of the ZSR tuned by a perpendicular electric field. When the ZSR is in the topological insulator phase under a zero electric field, the low-energy spin transport and its ON and OFF states in the tunneling junction mainly rely on the valley valve effect and the edge state of the energy band, which can be electrically modulated by the Fermi level, the spin–orbit coupling, and the local magnetization. When a nonzero perpendicular electric field is applied, the ZSR is a band insulator with a finite energy gap, the spin switch phenomenon is still preserved in the device and it does not come from the valley valve effect, but from the energy gap opened by the perpendicular electric field. The proposed device might be designed as electrical tunable spin valves to manipulate the spin degree of freedom of electrons in silicene.     

Graphene Tamm plasmon-induced giant Goos–H?nchen shift at terahertz frequencies

In this Letter, we have shown that a giant Goos–H?nchen shift of a light beam reflected at terahertz frequencies can be achieved by using a composite structure, where monolayer graphene is coated on one-dimensional photonic crystals separated by a dielectric slab. This giant Goos–H?nchen shift originates from the enhancement of the electrical field, owing to the excitation of optical Tamm states at the interface between the graphene and onedimensional photonic crystal. It is shown that the Goos–H?nchen shift in this structure can be significantly enlarged negatively and can be switched from negative to positive due to the tunability of graphene's conductivity. Moreover, the Goos–H?nchen shift of the proposed structure is sensitive to the relaxation time of graphene and the thickness of the top layer, making this structure a good candidate for a dynamic tunable optical shift device in the terahertz regime.     

Spin and valley half metal induced by staggered potential and magnetization in silicene

We investigate the electron transport in silicene with both staggered electric potential and magnetization; the latter comes from the magnetic proximity effect by depositing silicene on a magnetic insulator. It is shown that the silicene could be a spin and valley half metal under appropriate parameters when the spin–orbit interaction is considered; further, the filtered spin and valley could be controlled by modulating the staggered potential or magnetization. It is also found that in the spin-valve structure of silicene, not only can the antiparallel magnetization configuration significantly reduce the valve-structure conductance, but the reversing staggered electric potential can cause a high-performance magnetoresistance due to the spin and valley blocking effects. Our findings show that the silicene might be an ideal basis for the spin and valley filter analyzer devices.     

Spin and valley filter in strain engineered silicene

The realization of a perfect spin or valley filtering effect in two-dimensional graphene-like materials is one of the fundamental objectives in spintronics and valleytronics. For this purpose, we study spin- and valley-dependent transport in a silicene system with spatially alternative strains. It is found that due to the valley-opposite gauge field induced by the strain, the strained silicene with a superlattice structure exhibits an angle-resolved valley and spin filtering effect when the spin–orbit interaction is considered. When the interaction that breaks the time reversal symmetry is introduced, such as the spin or valley dependent staggered magnetization, the system is shown to be a perfect spin and valley half metal in which only one spin and valley species is allowed to transport. Our findings are helpful to design both spintronic and valleytronic devices based on silicene.     

Antiferromagnetic and topological states in silicene:A mean field study

It has been widely accepted that silicene is a topological insulator, and its gap closes first and then opens again with increasing electric field, which indicates a topological phase transition from the quantum spin Hall state to the band insulator state. However, due to the relatively large atomic spacing of silicene, which reduces the bandwidth, the electron–electron interaction in this system is considerably strong and cannot be ignored. The Hubbard interaction, intrinsic spin orbital coupling(SOC), and electric field are taken into consideration in our tight-binding model, with which the phase diagram of silicene is carefully investigated on the mean field level. We have found that when the magnitudes of the two mass terms produced by the Hubbard interaction and electric potential are close to each other, the intrinsic SOC flips the sign of the mass term at either K or K for one spin and leads to the emergence of the spin-polarized quantum anomalous Hall state.     

Spin and valley half metal induced by staggered potential and magnetization in siliceneSpin and valley half metal induced by staggered potential and magnetization in siliceneSpin and valley half metal induced by staggered potential and magnetization in silicene

We investigate the electron transport in silicene with both staggered electric potential and magnetization; the latter comes from the magnetic proximity effect by depositing silicene on a magnetic insulator. It is shown that the silicene could be a spin and valley half metal under appropriate parameters when the spin-orbit interaction is considered; further, the filtered spin and valley could be controlled by modulating the staggered potential or magnetization. It is also found that in the spin-valve structure of silicene, not only can the antiparallel magnetization configuration significantly reduce the valve-structure conductance, but the reversing staggered electric potential can cause a high-performance magnetoresistance due to the spin and valley blocking effects. Our findings show that the silicene might be an ideal basis for the spin and valley filter analyzer devices.     

Pressure influence on the Stark effect of impurity states in a strained wurtzite GaN/AlxGa1-xN heterojunction

A variational method is adopted to investigate the properties of shallow impurity states near the interface in a free strained wurtzite GaN/AlxGa1-xN heterojunction under hydrostatic pressure and external electric field by using a simplified coherent potential approximation. Considering the biaxial strain due to lattice mismatch or epitaxial growth and the uniaxial strains effects, we investigated the Stark energy shift led by an external electric field for impurity states as functions of pressure as well as the impurity position, Al component and areal electron density. The numerical result shows that the binding energy near linearly increases with pressure from 0 to 10 GPa. It is also found that the binding energy as a function of the electric field perpendicular to the interface shows an un-linear red shift or a blue shift for different impurity positions. The effect of increasing x on blue shift is more significant than that on the red shift for the impurity in the channel near the interface. The pressure influence on the Stark shift is more obvious with increase of electric field and the distance between an impurity and the interface. The increase of pressure decreases the blue shift but increases the red shift.     

Current-induced pseudospin polarization in silicene

The pseudospin polarization induced by an external electric field in silicene in the presence of weakly spinindependent impurities is considered theoretically in the linear response regime based on Green’s function method. We study the effects of the interplay between the sublattice potential and the intrinsic spin orbit coupling on the pseudospin polarization. We show that the pseudospin polarization perpendicular to the electric field is independent of the impurity parameter, while the pseudospin polarization in the direction of the electric field is sensitive to the impurity parameter. The dependences of the pseudospin polarizations on the chemical potential are studied.     

Adiabatic quantum pump in a zigzag graphene nanoribbon junction

The adiabatic electron transport is theoretically studied in a zigzag graphene nanoribbon(ZGNR) junction with two time-dependent pumping electric fields. By modeling a ZGNR p–n junction and applying the Keldysh Green's function method, we find that a pumped charge current is flowing in the device at a zero external bias, which mainly comes from the photon-assisted tunneling process and the valley selection rule in an even-chain ZGNR junction. The pumped charge current and its ON and OFF states can be efficiently modulated by changing the system parameters such as the pumping frequency, the pumping phase difference, and the Fermi level. A ferromagnetic ZGNR device is also studied to generate a pure spin current and a fully polarized spin current due to the combined spin pump effect and the valley valve effect. Our finding might pave the way to manipulate the degree of freedom of electrons in a graphene-based electronic device.     

Spin texturing in a parabolically confined quantum wire with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin–orbit interactions

In this study, we investigate theoretically the effect of spin–orbit coupling on the energy level spectrum and spin texturing of a quantum wire with a parabolic confining potential subjected to the perpendicular magnetic field. Highly accurate numerical calculations have been carried out using a finite element method. Our results reveal that the interplay between the spin–orbit interaction and the effective magnetic field significantly modifies the band structure, producing additional subband extrema and energy gaps. Competing effects between external field and spin–orbit interactions introduce complex features in spin texturing owing to the couplings in energy subbands. We obtain that spatial modulation of the spin density along the wire width can be considerably modified by the spin–orbit coupling strength, magnetic field and charge carrier concentration.     

非共振圆偏振光作用下单层二硫化钼电子结构及其自旋/谷输运性质

基于紧束缚近似下的低能有效哈密顿模型和久保线性响应理论,研究了外部非共振圆偏振光作用下单层二硫化钼(MoS_2)电子结构及其自旋/谷输运性质.研究结果表明:单层MoS_2布里渊区K谷和K′谷附近自旋依赖子带间的能隙随着非共振右旋圆偏振光引起的有效耦合能分别线性增大和先减小后增大,随着非共振左旋圆偏振光引起的有效耦合能分别先减小后增大和线性增大,实现了系统能带结构有趣的半导体-半金属-半导体转变.此外,单层MoS_2在外部非共振圆偏振光作用下,呈现有趣的量子化横向霍尔电导和自旋/谷霍尔电导,自旋极化率在非共振右/左旋圆偏振光有效耦合能±0.79 eV附近达到最大并发生由正到负或由负到正的急剧转变,谷极化率随着非共振圆偏振光有效耦合能先增大后减小并在其绝对值0.79-0.87 eV范围内达到100%.因而,可以利用外部非共振圆偏振光将单层MoS_2调制成自旋/谷以及光电特性优异的新带隙材料.     

Assessment of bilayer silicene to probe as quantum spin and valley Hall effect

Silicene takes precedence over graphene due to its buckling type structure and strong spin orbit coupling. Motivated by these properties, we study the silicene bilayer in the presence of applied perpendicular electric field and intrinsic spin orbit coupling to probe as quantum spin/valley Hall effect. Using analytical approach, we calculate the spin Chern-number of bilayer silicene and then compare it with monolayer silicene. We reveal that bilayer silicene hosts double spin Chern-number as compared to single layer silicene and therefore accordingly has twice as many edge states in contrast to single layer silicene. In addition, we investigate the combined effect of intrinsic spin orbit coupling and the external electric field, we find that bilayer silicene, likewise single layer silicene, goes through a phase transitions from a quantum spin Hall state to a quantum valley Hall state when the strength of the applied electric field exceeds the intrinsic spin orbit coupling strength. We believe that the results and outcomes obtained for bilayer silicene are experimentally more accessible as compared to bilayer graphene, because of strong SO coupling in bilayer silicene.     

磁性硅烯超晶格中电场调制的谷极化和自旋极化

研究了基于硅烯的静电势超晶格、铁磁超晶格、反铁磁超晶格中谷极化、自旋极化以及赝自旋极化的输运性质,分析了铁磁交换场、反铁磁交换场以及化学势对输运性质的影响,讨论了电场对谷极化、自旋极化以及赝自旋极化的调控作用.结果表明:当3种超晶格的晶格数达到10以上时,在硅烯超晶格中很容易实现100%的谷极化、自旋极化和赝自旋极化,而且通过调节超晶格上的外加电场可以使极化方向发生翻转,从而在硅烯超晶格中实现外电场对谷自由度、自旋自由度以及赝自旋自由度的操控.     

Electrical control of valley and spin polarized current and tunneling magnetoresistance in a silicene-based magnetic tunnel junction

We investigate the electronic transport in a silicene-based ferromagnetic metal/ferromagnetic insulator/ferromagnetic metal tunnel junction. The results show that the valley and spin transports are strongly dependent on local application of a vertical electric field and effective magnetization configurations of the ferromagnetic layers. In particular, it is found that the fully valley and spin polarized currents can be realized by tuning the external electric field. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that the tunneling magnetoresistance ratio in such a full magnetic junction of silicene is very sensitive to the electric field modulation.     

Charge,spin and valley pumping in silicene junction

The feasibility of generating polarized and unpolarized current in silicene by means of quantum pumping is discussed within the framework of Floquet scattering matrix. Charge pumping current is induced at zero magnetization splitting whereas spin and valley pumping current emerge when the symmetry between Dirac points K and K′ is broken. The intensity and direction of pumped current are shown to be dependent on pumping amplitude, phase between barriers, exchange energy and electric field. By careful control of external parameters, it is demonstrated that the ferromagnetic-silicene junction could be operated as a pump device that generates pure spin and valley pumping current.     

Valley-dependent electron transport in ferromagnetic/normal/ferromagnetic silicene junction

The electron transport through ferromagnetic/normal/ferromagnetic silicene junction with an induced energy gap is investigated in this work. The energy gap can be tuned by applying electric field or exchange fields due to the buckled structure of silicene. We analyze the local electric field, exchange field, length of normal region-dependence transmission probabilities of four groups and valley conductance. These transmission probabilities and valley conductance can be turned on or off by adjusting the local electric field and exchange field. In particular, a fully valley polarized conductance with 80% transmission is found in this junction, which can be caused by the interplay of valley-dependent massive Dirac electron, the exchange potential and the on-site potential difference of sublattices. Our findings will benefit applications in silicene-based high performance nano-electronics.     

Photoinduced anisotropic edge states and signatures of nonequilibrium spin polarization in silicene nanoribbons

Most topological phase transitions are accompanied by the emergence of surface/edge states with spin dependence. Usually, the quantized Hall conductivity cannot characterize the anisotropic transports and spin dependence of topological states. Here, we study the intricate topological phase transition and the anisotropic behavior of edge states in silicene nanoribbon submitted to an electric field or/and a light irradiation. It is interesting to find that a circularly polarized light can induce a type-II quantum anomaly Hall phase, which is manifested as the high Chern number and the strong anisotropic edge states. Besides the measurement of the quantized Hall conductivity, we further propose to probe these topological phase transitions and the anisotropy of edge states by measuring the current-induced nonequilibrium spin polarization. It is found that the spin polarization exhibits more signatures about the behavior of surface/edge states, beyond the quantized Hall conductivity, especially for spin-dependent transports with different velocities.     

Thermal currents obtained and mutually switched by a modified Haldane model in graphene

By using the transfer matrix method, we discover three types of current, such as the 100% spin-valley polarized current, pure spin-valley current and pure charge current, in a two-terminal graphene system. These types of current can be obtained and mutually switched by modulating the parameters of the modified Haldane model (MHM). In our work, these types of current are driven by the thermal bias. Compared with this method of increasing the one-lead temperature (with a fixed temperature difference), the thermal currents can be more effectively strengthened by increasing the temperature difference (with a fixed one-lead temperature). In order to rapidly turn off these currents, we choose to enhance the intensity of the off-resonant circularly polarized light instead of canceling the temperature difference. These results indicate that the graphene system with the MHM has promising applications in the spin and valley caloritronics.     

Can a linearly polarized light beam polarize atomic spin?

Lax et al. [Phys. Rev. 11 (1975) 1365] discovered that a light beam in vacuum is not a transverse wave but does have a longitudinal field component. We investigate atomic and molecular electric dipole transitions induced by such a light beam, in particular, linearly polarized in a transverse plane. We derive the selection rules and the transition rates for various quantization axes using the paraxial approximation up to the first order of 1/kw, where k is the wave number and w is the transverse size of the light beam. The light beam is able to yield atomic spin polarization in the direction perpendicular to both the optical axis and the transverse electric field, and its magnitude is approximately 1/kw times that generated by a circularly polarized light wave with the similar intensity.