The nondissipative spin Hall current in a nonuniform Rashba effect system

The spin Hall current in a two-dimensional electron system with nonuniform Rashba spin–orbit interaction (SOI) is investigated by means of the lattice Green's function method. Large electric and spin Hall currents are produced by this nonuniform Rashba SOI, while the electric Hall current vanishes in the uniform Rashba SOI system. A nondissipative spin Hall current is also produced, without any longitudinal voltage bias, any external magnetic field and any special class of band insulators.     

Charge current driven by spin dynamics in disordered Rashba spin-orbit system

Pumping of charge current by spin dynamics in the presence of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction is theoretically studied. Considering a disordered electron, the exchange coupling and spin-orbit interactions are treated perturbatively. It is found that the dominant current induced by spin dynamics is interpreted as a consequence of the conversion from spin current via the inverse spin Hall effect. We also find that the current has an additional component from a fictitious conservative field. The results are applied to the case of a moving domain wall.     

Temperature-controllable spin-polarized current and spin polarization in a Rashba three-terminal double-quantum-dot device

We propose a Rashba three-terminal double-quantum-dot device to generate a spin-polarized current and manipulate the electron spin in each quantum dot by utilizing the temperature gradient instead of the electric bias voltage. This device possesses a nonresonant tunneling channel and two resonant tunneling channels. The Keldysh nonequilibrium Green's function techniques are employed to determinate the spin-polarized current flowing from the electrodes and the spin accumulation in each quantum dot. We find that their signs and magnitudes are well controllable by the gate voltage or the temperature gradient. This result is attributed to the change in the slope of the transmission probability at the Fermi levels in the low-temperature region. Importantly, an obviously pure spin current can be injected into or extracted from one of the three electrodes by properly choosing the temperature gradient and the gate voltages. Therefore, the device can be used as an ideal thermal generator to produce a pure spin current and manipulate the electron spin in the quantum dot.     

Electrical measurement of spin Hall current in mesoscopic ring: inhomogeneous Rashba effect

We investigate theoretically the spin Hall current in an inhomogeneous Rashba mesoscopic ring attached to four terminals. It is shown that a voltage drop can be tuned by adjusting the gate voltage due to the inhomogeneous Rashba effect, and provides us a tool to measure spin Hall current electrically. The spin Hall current and the ratio of the probe voltages can survive and keep their obvious relationship even in the presence of disorder. The regular relationship between the spin Hall conductance and the ratio of the probe voltages will be destroyed by the interference between different channels in multi-channel ring.     

Hall effect induced by a spin-polarized current in superconductors

We propose a novel anomalous Hall effect caused by the spin-polarized current in superconductors (SC). The spin-polarized quasiparticles flowing in SC are deflected by spin-orbit scattering to yield a quasiparticle charge imbalance in the transverse direction. Overall charge neutrality gives rise to a compensating change in the number of Cooper pairs. A transverse electric field builds up as opposed to an acceleration of the Cooper pairs, producing the Hall voltage. It is found that the Hall voltages due to the side jump and skew scattering mechanisms have different temperature dependence in the superconducting state. A spin-injection Hall device to generate the ac Josephson effect is proposed.     

Spin current and accumulation generated by the spin Hall insulator

Spin current and accumulation generated by the electric field in a spin Hall insulator (SHI) are investigated theoretically in terms of the Keldysh formalism. In contrast to the quantum Hall system, there are no massless edge modes in general. The spin current is generated near the contacts to the electrodes by the hybridization between the metallic states and the conduction/valence bands of the SHI, but is truncated by the sink and source of the spin. However, one can produce the spin current flowing out to the conductors, which is attached to the SHI, and also the spin accumulation there, due to the leakage charge current which breaks the time-reversal symmetry.     

Spin current and its heat effect in a multichannel quantum wire with Rashba spinben orbit coupling

Using the perturbation method, we theoretically study the spin current and its heat effect in a multichannel quantum wire with Rashba spin—orbit coupling. The heat generated by the spin current is calculated. With the increase of the width of the quantum wire, the spin current and the heat generated both exhibit period oscillations with equal amplitudes. When the quantum-channel number is doubled, the oscillation periods of the spin current and of the heat generated both decrease by a factor of 2. For the spin current j_s,xy, the amplitude increases with the decrease of the quantum channel; while the amplitude of the spin current j_s,yx remains the same. Therefore we conclude that the effect of the quantum-channel number on the spin current j_s,xy is greater than that on the spin current j_s,yx. The strength of the Rashba spin—orbit coupling is tunable by the gate voltage, and the gate voltage can be varied experimentally, which implies a new method of detecting the spin current. In addition, we can control the amplitude and the oscillation period of the spin current by controlling the number of the quantum channels. All these characteristics of the spin current will be very important for detecting and controlling the spin current, and especially for designing new spintronic devices in the future.     

Tunneling conductance study of a metal-superconductor junction in the presence of Rashba spin orbit coupling

The tunneling conductance for a junction device consisting of a normal metal and a singlet superconductor is studied with Rashba spin orbit coupling (RSOC) being present in the metallic lead and the interface separating the two regions via an extended Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk (BTK) formalism. Interesting interplay between the RSOC and a number of parameters that have experimental significance, and characterize either the junction or the superconducting leads, such as the barrier transparency, quasiparticle lifetime, Fermi wavevector mismatch, an in-plane magnetic field and their effects on the tunneling conductance are investigated in details for both a s-wave and a d-wave superconductor. In an opaque barrier, in presence of a quasiparticle lifetime, a Fermi wavevector mismatch or an external in-plane magnetic field, RSOC enhances the conductance corresponding to low biasing energies, that is, at energies lesser than the superconducting gap, while the reverse is noted for energies exceeding the magnitude of the gap. Further, there are exciting anomalies noted in the conductance spectrum for the d-wave gap which can be understood by incorporating the interplay between the superconducting gap and the angle of incident of the charge carriers.     

Effect of eccentricity in the spin accumulation effect induced in semiconductors rings with Rashba spin orbit interaction

A spin accumulation effect (SAE) is induced in a semiconductor nanoring with Rashba spin orbit interaction and pierced by a magnetic flux. We show that when the sample is not perfectly symmetric, the profile of the SAE can be highly inhomogeneous along specific orientations. In particular, we analyze the anisotropy generated in the angular profile by a finite eccentricity. We discuss the feasibility of detecting the effect with usual magneto optical techniques for a number of electrons and values of magnetic fluxes experimentally accessible.     

Clock effect due to gravitational spin–orbit coupling

In this Letter, we consider a possible gravitational spin–orbit coupling. It is shown that in presence of such a coupling there would appear a clock effect very similar to the gravitomagnetic clock effect. The new clock effect is found to be topological. According to this effect, two counter-orbiting spinning test particles placed on two identical, circular equatorial orbits around a central massive body would take different times to complete a full revolution. We obtain, in this Letter, a qualitative expression for the period difference.     

Quantum spin Hall effect and enhanced magnetic response by spin-orbit coupling

We show that the spin-Hall conductivity in insulators is related to a magnetic susceptibility representing the strength of the spin-orbit coupling. We use this relationship as a guiding principle to search real materials showing quantum spin-Hall effect. As a result, we theoretically predict that two-dimensional bismuth will show the quantum spin-Hall effect, both by calculating the helical edge states, and by showing the nontriviality of the Z2 topological number, and propose possible experiments.     

Influence of spin-orbit coupling induced by in-plane external electric field on the intrinsic spin-Hall effect in a Rashba two-dimensional electron gas

We study theoretically the influence of spin--orbit coupling induced by in-plane external electric field on the intrinsic spin-Hall effect in a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin--orbit coupling. We show that, after such an influence is taken into account, the static intrinsic spin-Hall effect can be stabilized in a disordered Rashba two-dimensional electron gas, and the static intrinsic spin-Hall conductivity shall exhibit some interesting characteristics as conceived in some original theoretical proposals.     

Vertex corrections to the anomalous Hall effect in spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gases with a Rashba spin-orbit interaction

We study the effect of disorder on the intrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity in a magnetic two-dimensional electron gas with a Rashba-type spin-orbit interaction. We find that anomalous Hall conductivity vanishes unless the lifetime is spin-dependent, similar to the spin Hall conductivity in the nonmagnetic system. In addition, we find that the spin Hall conductivity does not vanish in the presence of magnetic scatterers.     

Spin Hall current driven by quantum interferences in mesoscopic Rashba rings

We propose an all-electrical nanostructure where pure spin current is induced in the transverse voltage probes attached to a quantum-coherent ballistic one-dimensional ring when unpolarized charge current is injected through its longitudinal leads. Tuning of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling in a semiconductor heterostructure hosting the ring generates quasiperiodic oscillations of the predicted spin-Hall current due to spin-sensitive quantum-interference effects caused by the difference in the Aharonov-Casher phase accumulated by opposite spin states. Its amplitude is comparable to that of the spin-Hall current predicted for finite-size (simply connected) two-dimensional electron gases, while it gets reduced gradually in wide two-dimensional rings or due to spin-independent disorder.     

Intrinsic Hall effect and separation of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin splittings in semiconductor quantum wells

We have proposed a method to separate Rashba and Dresselhaus spin splittings in semiconductor quantum wells by using the intrinsic Hall effect. It is shown that the interference between Rashba and Dresselhaus terms can deflect the electrons in opposite transverse directions with a change of sign in the macroscopic Hall current, thus providing an alternative way to determine the different contributions to the spin--orbit coupling.     

Interplay of Rashba spin orbit coupling and disorder in the conductance properties of a four terminal junction device

We report a thorough theoretical investigation on the quantum transport of a disordered four terminal device in the presence of Rashba spin orbit coupling (RSOC) in two dimensions. Specifically we compute the behaviour of the longitudinal (charge) conductance, spin Hall conductance and spin Hall conductance fluctuation as a function of the strength of disorder and Rashba spin orbit interaction using the Landauer Büttiker formalism via Green’s function technique. Our numerical calculations reveal that both the conductances diminish with disorder. At smaller values of the RSOC parameter, the longitudinal and spin Hall conductances increase, while both vanish in the strong RSOC limit. The spin current is more drastically affected by both disorder and RSOC than its charge counterpart. The spin Hall conductance fluctuation does not show any universality in terms of its value and it depends on both disorder as well as on the RSOC strength. Thus the spin Hall conductance fluctuation has a distinct character compared to the fluctuation in the longitudinal conductance. Further one parameter scaling theory is studied to assess the transition to a metallic regime as claimed in literature and we find no confirmation about the emergence of a metallic state induced by RSOC.     

Spin-polarization in a 3-terminal conductor induced by Rashba spin–orbit coupling

We investigate numerically the spin polarization of the current in the presence of Rashba spin–orbit interaction (RSOI) in a 3-terminal conductor. We use equation-of-motion method to simulate the time evolution of the wave packet and focus on single-channel transport. A T-shaped conductor with uniform RSOI proposed by Kiselev and Kim and a Y-shaped conductor with nonuniform RSOI are considered. In the T-shaped conductor, the strength of RSOI is assumed to be uniform. We have found that the spin polarization becomes nearly 100% with little loss of conductance for sufficiently strong spin–orbit coupling. This is due to the spin-dependent group velocity of electrons at the junction which causes the spin separation. In the Y-shaped conductor, the strength of RSOI is modulated perpendicular to the charge current. A spatial gradient of effective magnetic field due to the nonuniform RSOI causes the Stern–Gerlach type spin separation. The direction of the polarization is perpendicular to the current and parallel to the spatial gradient. Again almost 100% spin polarization can be realized by this spin separation.     

Excitation of spin dynamics by spin-polarized current in vortex state magnetic disks

A spin-polarized current with the polarization direction perpendicular to a disk in the vortex ground state will result in renormalization of the effective damping of excitations on this state. As the current is increased to a threshold current Ic the effective damping will be zero and the lowest threshold current corresponds to the vortex gyrotropic mode. For larger values of the current the excitation is a nonlinear gyrotropic mode having nonsmall amplitudes and larger frequency than the linear mode. This effect occurs for any mode of the vortex-state disk, and the value of Ic is proportional to the mode frequency.     

Magnetic vortex driven by non-uniform injection of spin-polarized current in nano-scale spin valves

We demonstrate that a current pulse of a non-uniform spin-polarized current density in a nanomagnet can drive, apart from magnetization reversal a static magnetic vortex. This vortex configuration can be achieved in low shape anisotropy spin valves of elliptical cross-sectional area. These non-uniform configurations exist also in presence of either ion mill damages below the nano-aperture or thermal effects at low temperature. We performed a numerical experiment of spin-torque driven ferromagnetic resonance in a magnetic vortex configuration, our results predict a frequency response with a few maxima and minima related to small oscillation of the vortex state around its equilibrium configuration.     

Spin current and its heat effect in a multichannel quantum wire with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

Using the perturbation method,we theoretically study the spin current and its heat effect in a multichannel quantum wire with Rashba spin-orbit coupling.The heat generated by the spin current is calculated.With the increase of the width of the quantum wire,the spin current and the heat generated both exhibit period oscillations with equal amplitudes.When the quantum-channel number is doubled,the oscillation periods of the spin current and of the heat generated both decrease by a factor of 2.For the spin current j s,xy,the amplitude increases with the decrease of the quantum channel;while the amplitude of the spin current j s,yx remains the same.Therefore we conclude that the effect of the quantum-channel number on the spin current j s,xy is greater than that on the spin current j s,yx.The strength of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling is tunable by the gate voltage,and the gate voltage can be varied experimentally,which implies a new method of detecting the spin current.In addition,we can control the amplitude and the oscillation period of the spin current by controlling the number of the quantum channels.All these characteristics of the spin current will be very important for detecting and controlling the spin current,and especially for designing new spintronic devices in the future.