Search

The origin of spin-orbit interaction of light at a conventional optical interface lies in the transverse nature of the photon polarization: The polarizations associated with the plane-wave components experience slightly different rotations in order to satisfy the transversality after reflection or refraction. Recent advances in topological photonic materials provide crucial opportunities to reexamine the spin-orbit interaction of light at the unique optical interface. Here, we establish a general model to describe the spin-orbit interaction of light in the photonic Dirac metacrystal. We find a giant photonic spin Hall effect near the Dirac points when a Gaussian beam impinges at the interface of the photonic Dirac metacrystal. The giant photonic spin Hall effect is attribute to the strong spin-orbit interaction of light, which manifests itself as the large polarization rotations of different plane-wave components. We believe that these results may provide insight into the fundamental properties of the spin-orbit interaction of light in the topological photonic systems., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

When the Rashba and Dresslhaus spin-orbit coupling are both presented for a two-dimensional electron in a perpendicular magnetic field, a striking resemblance to anisotropic quantum Rabi model in quantum optics is found. We perform a generalized Rashba coupling approximation to obtain a solvable Hamiltonian by keeping the nearest-mixing terms of Laudau states, which is reformulated in the similar form to that with only Rashba coupling. Each Landau state becomes a new displaced-Fock state with a displacement shift instead of the original Harmonic oscillator Fock state, yielding eigenstates in closed form. Analytical energies are consistent with numerical ones in a wide range of coupling strength even for a strong Zeeman splitting. In the presence of an electric field, the spin conductance and the charge conductance obtained analytically are in good agreements with the numerical results. As the component of the Dresselhaus coupling increases, we find that the spin Hall conductance exhibits a pronounced resonant peak at a larger value of the inverse of the magnetic field. Meanwhile, the charge conductance exhibits a series of plateaus as well as a jump at the resonant magnetic field. Our method provides an easy-to-implement analytical treatment to two-dimensional electron gas systems with both types of spin-orbit couplings., Comment: 9 pages,3 figures

We study the spin transport of light in weakly inhomogeneous axion field in a flat Robertson-Walker universe and derive the spin Hall effect for circularly polarized rays. Regarding primordial quantum fluctuations of the axion field in the de Sitter phase as the origin of the inhomogeneity, we show that the conformal invariance of the correlator determines the root-mean-square (r.m.s) fluctuations of the path of circularly polarized cosmic rays. We explain how the r.m.s fluctuations can be experimentally determined., Comment: To appear in Phys. Lett. B

The spin Hall effect (SHE) is highly promising for spintronic applications, and the design of materials with large SHE can enable ultra-low power memory technology. Recently, 5d-transition metal oxides have been shown to demonstrate a large SHE. Here we report large values of SHE in four 5d-transition metal anti-perovskites which makes these anti-perovskites promising spintronic materials. We demonstrate that these effects originate in the mixing of dx2-y2 and dxy orbitals caused by spin orbit coupling.

Magnetization switching in a fine-structured ferromagnet of nanoscale by the spin-transfer torque excited via the spin Hall effect has attracted much attention because it enables us to manipulate the magnetization without directly applying current to the ferromagnet. However, the switching mechanism is still unclear in regard to the ferromagnet having an in-plane easy axis parallel to the current. Here, we develop an analytical theory of the magnetization switching in this type of ferromagnet, and reveal the threshold current formulas for a deterministic switching. It is clarified that the current should be in between a certain range determined by two threshold currents because the spin-transfer torque due to a large current outside the range brings the magnetization in an energetically unstable state, and causes magnetization precession around the hard axis., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures

In an easy-plane antiferromagnet with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), magnons are subject to an effective spin-momentum locking. An in-plane temperature gradient can generate interfacial accumulation of magnons with a specified polarization, realizing the magnon thermal Edelstein effect. We theoretically investigate the injection and detection of this thermally-driven spin polarization in an adjacent heavy metal with strong spin Hall effect. We find that the inverse spin Hall voltage depends monotonically on both temperature and the DMI but non-monotonically on the hard-axis anisotropy. Counterintuitively, the magnon thermal Edelstein effect is an even function of a magnetic field applied along the N\'eel vector.

We investigated temperature dependent current driven spin-orbit torques in magnetron sputtered Ru2Sn3 (4 and 10 nm) /Co20Fe60B20 (5 nm) layered structures with in-plane magnetic anisotropy. The room temperature damping-like and field-like spin torque efficiencies of the amorphous Ru2Sn3 films were measured to be 0.14 +- 0.008 (0.07 +- 0.012) and -0.03 +- 0.006 (-0.20 +- 0.009), for the 4 (10 nm) films respectively, by utilizing the second harmonic Hall technique. The large field-like torque in the relatively thicker Ru2Sn3 (10 nm) thin film is unique compared to the traditional spin Hall materials interfaced with thick magnetic layers with in-plane magnetic anisotropy which typically have dominant damping-like and negligible field-like torques. Additionally, the observed room temperature field-like torque efficiency in Ru2Sn3 (10 nm)/CoFeB (5 nm) is up to three times larger than the damping-like torque (-0.20 +- 0.009 and 0.07 +- 0.012, respectively) and thirty times larger at 50 K (-0.29 +- 0.014 and 0.009 +- 0.017, respectively). The temperature dependence of the field-like torques show dominant contributions from the intrinsic spin Hall effect while the damping-like torques show dominate contributions from the extrinsic spin Hall effects, skew scattering and side jump. Through macro-spin calculations, we found that including field-like torques on the order or larger than the damping-like torque can reduce the switching critical current and decrease magnetization procession for a perpendicular ferromagnetic layer., Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Materials

Spin-orbit interactions (SOI) are a set of sub-wavelength optical phenomenon in which spin and spatial degrees of freedom of light are intrinsically coupled. One of the unique example of SOI, spin-Hall effect of light (SHEL) has been an area of extensive research with potential applications in spin controlled photonic devices as well as emerging fields of spinoptics and spintronics. Here, we report our experimental study on SHEL due to forward scattering of focused linearly polarized Gaussian and Hermite-Gaussian ($\textrm{HG}_{10}$) beams from a silver nanowire (AgNW). Spin dependent anti-symmetric intensity patterns are obtained when the polarization of the scattered light is analysed. The corresponding spin-Hall signal is obtained by computing the far-field longitudinal spin density ($s_3$). Furthermore, by comparing the $s_3$ distributions, significant enhancement of the spin-Hall signal is found for $\textrm{HG}_{10}$ beam compared to Gaussian beam. The investigation of the optical fields at the focal plane of the objective lens reveals the generation of longitudinally spinning fields as the primary reason for the effects. The experimental results are corroborated by 3-dimensional numerical simulations. The results lead to better understanding of SOI and can have direct implications on chip-scale spin assisted photonic devices., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figues

We report an unconventional quantum spin Hall phase in the monolayer T$_\text{d}$-WTe$_2$, which exhibits hitherto unknown features in other topological materials. The low-symmetry of the structure induces a canted spin texture in the $yz$ plane, which dictates the spin polarization of topologically protected boundary states. Additionally, the spin Hall conductivity gets quantized ($2e^2/h$) with a spin quantization axis parallel to the canting direction. These findings are based on large-scale quantum simulations of the spin Hall conductivity tensor and nonlocal resistances in multi-probe geometries using a realistic tight-binding model elaborated from first-principle methods. The observation of this canted quantum spin Hall effect, related to the formation of topological edge states with nontrivial spin polarization, demands for specific experimental design and suggests interesting alternatives for manipulating spin information in topological materials., Comment: For comments please contact josehugo.garcia@icn2.cat

Spin Hall effect (SHE) is the generation of spin current due to an electric field, and has been observed in a variety of materials. The analogous spin Hall current can be induced by chemical potential and temperature gradient, both of which are present in hot and dense nuclear matter created in heavy-ion collisions. In this letter, we investigate the perspective of detecting spin Hall current experimentally. We propose to measure "directed spin flow", the first Fourier coefficients of local spin polarization of $\Lambda$ ($\bar{\Lambda}$) hyperon, at central collisions to probe spin Hall current. To quantify induced spin current, we evaluate relevant transport coefficients using thermal field theory. We benchmark the magnitude of the induced "directed spin flow" at two representatively collisions energies, namely $\sqrt{s}_{NN}=200~{\rm GeV}$ and $\sqrt{s}_{NN}=19.6~{\rm GeV}$, by employing a phenomenologically motivated freeze-out prescription. At both beam energies, the resulting "directed spin flow" ranges from $10^{-4}$ to $10^{-3}$, and is very sensitive to the rapidity., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; published version

The proximity effect opens ways to transfer properties from one material into another and is especially important in two-dimensional materials. In van der Waals heterostructures, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) can be used to enhance the spin-orbit coupling of graphene leading to the prediction of gate controllable spin-to-charge conversion (SCC). Here, we report for the first time and quantify the SHE in graphene proximitized with WSe$_2$ up to room temperature. Unlike in other graphene/TMD devices, the sole SCC mechanism is the spin Hall effect and no Rashba-Edelstein effect is observed. Importantly, we are able to control the SCC by applying a gate voltage. The SCC shows a high efficiency, measured with an unprecedented SCC length larger than 20 nm. These results show the capability of two-dimensional materials to advance towards the implementation of novel spin-based devices and future applications., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, Supplementary Material

Direct visualizations of spin accumulation due to the enhanced spin Hall effect (SHE) in bismuth (Bi) - doped silicon (Si) at room temperature are realized by using helicity-dependent photovoltage (HDP) measurements. Under application of a dc current to the Bi-doped Si, clear helicity-dependent photovoltages are detected at the edges of the Si channel, indicating a perpendicular spin accumulation due to the SHE. In contrast, the HDP signals are negligibly small for phosphorus-doped Si. Compared to a platinum channel, which has a large spin Hall angle, more than two-orders of magnitude larger HDP signals are obtained in the Bi-doped Si.

Large charge-to-spin conversion (spin Hall angle) and spin Hall conductivity are prerequisites for development of next generation power efficient spintronic devices. In this context, heavy metals (e.g. Pt, W etc.), topological insulators, antiferromagnets are usually considered because they exhibit high spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In addition to the above materials, 5d transition metal oxide e.g. Iridium Oxide (IrO 2 ) is a potential candidate which exhibits high SOC strength. Here we report a study of spin pumping and inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE), via ferromagnetic resonance (FMR), in IrO 2 /CoFeB system. We identify the individual contribution of spin pumping and other spin rectification effects in the magnetic layer, by investigating the in-plane angular dependence of ISHE signal. Our analysis shows significant contribution of spin pumping effect to the ISHE signal. We show that polycrystalline IrO 2 thin film exhibits high spin Hall conductivity and spin Hall angle which are comparable to the values of Pt., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Manganites have shown potential in spintronics because they exhibit high spin polarization. Here, by ferromagnetic resonance we have studied the damping properties of La$_{0.67}$Sr$_{0.33}$MnO$_{3}$/Pt bilayers which are prepared by oxide molecular beam epitaxy. The damping coefficient ($\alpha$) of La$_{0.67}$Sr$_{0.33}$MnO$_{3}$ (LSMO) single layer is found to be 0.0104. However the LSMO/Pt bilayers exhibit decrease in $\alpha$ with increase in Pt thickness. This decrease in the value of $\alpha$ is probably due to high anti-damping like torque. Further, we have investigated the angle dependent inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) to quantify the spin pumping voltage from other spin rectification effects such as anomalous Hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresistance. We have observed high spin pumping voltage ($\sim$~20 $ \mu V$). The results indicate that both anti-damping and spin pumping phenomena are occuring simultaneously., Comment: 5 figure

We measure magnetic field dependence of the Hall angle in a metallic ferromagnetic nanomagnet with stable local magnetic moments where the adopted mechanisms of Hall effect predict linear plus a constant dependence on the external field originating from the ordinary and anomalous Hall effects, respectively. We suggest that the experimentally observed deviations from this dependence is caused by the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) and develop a phenomenological theory, which predicts a unique nonlinear dependence of the ISHE contribution on the external magnetic field. Perfect agreement between theory and experiment supports the considerable role of the ISHE in the Hall transport in ferromagnetic metals., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

We propose theoretically a reconfigurable two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal sonic crystal with higher-order topology protected by the six-fold, $C_6$, rotation symmetry. The acoustic band gap and band topology can be controlled by rotating the triangular scatterers in each unit-cell. In the nontrivial phase, the sonic crystal realizes the topological spin Hall effect in a higher-order fashion: (i) The edge states emerging in the bulk band gap exhibits partial spin-momentum locking and are gapped due to the reduced spatial symmetry at the edges. (ii) The gapped edge states, on the other hand, stabilize the topological corner states emerging in the edge band gap. The partial spin-momentum locking is manifested as pseudo-spin-polarization of edge states away from the time-reversal invariant momenta, where the pseudospin is emulated by the acoustic orbital angular momentum. We reveal the underlying topological mechanism using a corner topological index based on the symmetry representation of the acoustic Bloch bands., Comment: 3 figures

Although recent experiments and theories have shown a variety of exotic transport properties of non-equilibrium quasiparticles (QPs) in superconductor (SC)-based devices with either Zeeman or exchange spin-splitting, how QP interplays with magnon spin currents remains elusive. Here, using non-local magnon spin-transport devices where a singlet SC (Nb) on top of a ferrimagnetic insulator (Y3Fe5O12) serves as a magnon spin detector, we demonstrate that the conversion efficiency of magnon spin to QP charge via inverse spin-Hall effect (iSHE) in such an exchange-spin-split SC can be greatly enhanced by up to 3 orders of magnitude compared with that in the normal state, particularly when its interface superconducting gap matches the magnon spin accumulation. Through systematic measurements with varying the current density and SC thickness, we identify that superconducting coherence peaks and exchange spin-splitting of the QP density-of-states, yielding a larger spin excitation while retaining a modest QP charge-imbalance relaxation, are responsible for the giant QP iSHE. The latter exchange-field-modified QP relaxation is experimentally proved by spatially resolved measurements with varying the separation of electrical contacts on the spin-split Nb., Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures

We investigate some foundational issues in the quantum theory of spin transport, in the general case when the unperturbed Hamiltonian operator $H_0$ does not commute with the spin operator in view of Rashba interactions, as in the typical models for the Quantum Spin Hall effect. A gapped periodic one-particle Hamiltonian $H_0$ is perturbed by adding a constant electric field of intensity $\varepsilon \ll 1$ in the $j$-th direction, and the linear response in terms of a $S$-current in the $i$-th direction is computed, where $S$ is a generalized spin operator. We derive a general formula for the spin conductivity that covers both the choice of the conventional and of the proper spin current operator. We investigate the independence of the spin conductivity from the choice of the fundamental cell (Unit Cell Consistency), and we isolate a subclass of discrete periodic models where the conventional and the proper $S$-conductivity agree, thus showing that the controversy about the choice of the spin current operator is immaterial as far as models in this class are concerned. As a consequence of the general theory, we obtain that whenever the spin is (almost) conserved, the spin conductivity is (approximately) equal to the spin-Chern number. The method relies on the characterization of a non-equilibrium almost-stationary state (NEASS), which well approximates the physical state of the system (in the sense of space-adiabatic perturbation theory) and allows moreover to compute the response of the adiabatic $S$-current as the trace per unit volume of the $S$-current operator times the NEASS. This technique can be applied in a general framework, which includes both discrete and continuum models., Comment: 49 pages, no figures. Keywords: quantum transport theory, spin conductivity, spin conductance, topological insulators, Spin Chern number

We propose an experimental realization of the Spin Hall effect in graphene by illuminating a graphene sheet on top of a substrate with circularly polarized monochromatic light. The substrate induces a controllable Rashba type spin-orbit coupling which breaks the spin-degeneracy of the Dirac cones but it is gapless. The circularly polarized light induces a gap in the spectrum and turns graphene into a Floquet topological insulator with spin dependent edge states. By analyzing the high and intermediate frequency regimes, we find that in both parameter limits, the spin-Chern number can be tuned by the effective coupling strength of the charge particles to the radiation field and determine the condition for the photoinduced topological phase transition., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

An inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) in n-type silicon was observed experimentally when conduction electrons were scattered on the spin-orbit potential of bismuth. The spin current in the silicon layer was generated by excitation of the magnetization precession during ferromagnetic resonance in a thin permalloy (Py) layer deposited on a Si layer doped by phosphor and bismuth. From the angular dependences of the dc voltage for different Py/n-Si:Bi structures aligned along the [011] or [100] crystal axes, we were able to distinguish the planar Hall effect (PHE) and ISHE contributions. The ISHE dc voltage signal was proportional to sin{\theta}*sin2{\theta} product for the structure aligned to the [011] crystal axis and to sin{\theta}*cos2{\theta} for the [100] direction. In addition, the PHE dc voltage was observed for the angles corresponded to the sin2{\theta} dependence. It means that for silicon as a many-valley semiconductor, the scattering of spins due to the spin-orbit potential induced by shallow donor in n-type material is dependent on the orientation of the valley axes relative to the direction of the magnetic field.

Spin Hall effect (SHE), a fundamental transport phenomenon with non-zero spin current but vanishing charge current, has important applications in spintronics for the electrical control of spins. Owing to the half-spin nature of electrons, the rank of spin current (determined by the rank of spin tensors) has been restricted to 0 and 1 for charge and spin Hall effects. Motivated by recent studies of pseudospin-1 fermions in solid state and cold atomic systems, here we introduce and characterize higher-rank ($\geq 2$) SHEs in large spin ($\geq 1$) systems. We find a universal rank-2 spin Hall conductivity $e/{8}\pi $, with zero rank-0 and 1 conductivities, for a spin-1 model with intrinsic spin-orbit coupling. Similar rank-2 SHEs can also be found in a spin-3/2 system. An experimental scheme is proposed to realize and measure rank-2 SHEs with pseudospin-1 ultracold fermionic atoms. Our results reveal novel spin transport phenomena in large spin systems and may find important applications in designing innovative spintronic devices., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures

Quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect with great promise for the potential application in spintronics and quantum computing has attracted extensive research interest from both theoretical and experimental researchers. Here, we predict monolayer Ta$_2$Pd$_3$Te$_5$ can be a QSH insulator based on first-principles calculations. The interlayer binding energy in the layered van der Waals compound Ta$_2$Pd$_3$Te$_5$ is 19.6 meV/A$^2$; thus, its monolayer/thin-film structures could be readily obtained by exfoliation. The band inversion near the Fermi level ($E_F$) is an intrinsic characteristic, which happens between Ta-$5d$ and Pd-$4d$ orbitals without spin-orbit coupling (SOC). The SOC effect opens a global gap and makes the system a QSH insulator. With the $d$-$d$ band-inverted feature, the nontrivial topology in monolayer Ta$_2$Pd$_3$Te$_5$ is characterized by the time-reversal topological invariant $\mathbb Z_2=1$, which is computed by the one-dimensional (1D) Wilson loop method as implemented in our first-principles calculations. The helical edge modes are also obtained using surface Green's function method. Our calculations show that the QSH state in Ta$_2M_3$Te$_5$ ($M=$ Pd, Ni) can be tuned by external strain. These monolayers and thin films provide feasible platforms for realizing QSH effect as well as related devices., Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, 1 table

The intrinsic spin Hall conductivity of typical topological insulators Sb$_2$Se$_3$, Sb$_2$Te$_3$, Bi$_2$Se$_3$, and Bi$_2$Te$_3$ in the bulk form, is calculated from first-principles by using density functional theory and the linear response theory in a maximally localized Wannier basis. The results show that there is a finite spin Hall conductivity of 100--200 ($\hbar$/2e)(S/cm) in the vicinity of the Fermi energy. Although the resulting values are an order of magnitude smaller than that of heavy metals, they show a comparable spin Hall angle due to their relatively lower longitudinal conductivity. The spin Hall angle for different compounds are then compared to that of recent experiments on topological-insulator/ferromagnet heterostructures. The comparison suggests that the role of the bulk in generating a spin current and consequently a spin torque in magnetization switching applications is comparable to that of the surface including the spin-momentum locked surface states and the Rashba-Edelstein effect at the interface., Comment: 14 pages (10 main + 4 supplemental), 8 figures