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Electrical generation and transduction of polarized electron spins in semiconductors are of central interest in spintronics and quantum information science. While spin generation in semiconductors has been frequently realized via electrical injection from a ferromagnet, there are significant advantages in nonmagnetic pathways of creating spin polarization. One such pathway exploits the interplay of electron spin with chirality in electronic structures or real space. Here, utilizing chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), we demonstrate efficient creation of spin accumulation in n-doped GaAs via electric current injection from a normal metal (Au) electrode through a self-assembled monolayer of chiral molecules ({\alpha}-helix L-polyalanine, AHPA-L). The resulting spin polarization is detected as a Hanle effect in the n-GaAs, which is found to obey a distinct universal scaling with temperature and bias current consistent with chirality-induced spin accumulation. The experiment constitutes a definitive observation of CISS in a fully nonmagnetic device structure and demonstration of its ability to generate spin accumulation in a conventional semiconductor. The results thus place key constraints on the physical mechanism of CISS and present a new scheme for magnet-free semiconductor spintronics.

Metal halide perovskites possess many physical properties amenable to optoelectronic applications, whereas the realization of these potentials has been hampered by their environmental and electronic instabilities. The morphological and molecular low dimensional perovskites and perovskite related materials have shown much promise in enhancing the chemical stability due to their unique molecular structures. Here we report on robust and reproducible four-terminal (4T) electrical measurements in a one-dimensional (1D) organic metal halide hybrid, (R)-{\alpha}-methylbenzylammonium lead triiodide ((R-{\alpha}-MBA)PbI3) made possible by its chemical stability. The results reveal a distinct intrinsic ion migration dynamic of single exponential, which underlies the unique 4T I-V characteristics. The dynamic is directly verified by real-time measurements of the transient ionic current. Our observations are consistent with photo-activation and field-assisted ion migration. The elucidated intrinsic ion dynamics may provide the physical basis for understanding and modelling the ubiquitous hysteresis in metal halides based electronic devices and new insights into the dynamics of ion migration in metal halide perovskites and hybrids in general.

Chirality has been a property of central importance in chemistry and biology for more than a century, and is now taking on increasing relevance in condensed matter physics. Recently, electrons were found to become spin polarized after transmitting through chiral molecules, crystals, and their hybrids. This phenomenon, called chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), presents broad application potentials and far-reaching fundamental implications involving intricate interplays among structural chirality, topological states, and electronic spin and orbitals. However, the microscopic picture of how chiral geometry influences electronic spin remains elusive. In this work, via a direct comparison of magnetoconductance (MC) measurements on magnetic semiconductor-based chiral molecular spin valves with normal metal electrodes of contrasting strengths of spin-orbit coupling (SOC), we unambiguously identified the origin of the SOC, a necessity for the CISS effect, given the negligible SOC in organic molecules. The experiments revealed that a heavy-metal electrode provides SOC to convert the orbital polarization induced by the chiral molecular structure to spin polarization. Our results evidence the essential role of SOC in the metal electrode for engendering the CISS spin valve effect. A tunneling model with a magnetochiral modulation of the potential barrier is shown to quantitatively account for the unusual transport behavior. This work hence produces critical new insights on the microscopic mechanism of CISS, and more broadly, reveals a fundamental relation between structure chirality, electron spin, and orbital.

The ability to create micro/nano patterns of organic self-assembled monolayers on semiconductor surfaces is crucial for fundamental studies and applications in a number of emerging fields in nanoscience. Here, we demonstrate the patterning of thiol molecular SAMs on oxide-free GaAs surface by dip-pen nanolithography and micro-contact printing, facilitated by a process of surface etching and passivation of the GaAs. A quantitative analysis on the molecular diffusion on GaAs was conducted by examining the writing of nanoscale dot and line patterns by DPN, which agrees well with surface diffusion models. The functionality of the patterned thiol molecules was demonstrated by directed self-assembly of gold nanoparticles onto a template of 4-Aminothiophenol SAM on GaAs. The highly selective assembly of the Au NPs was evidenced with atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The ability to precisely control the assembly of Au NPs on oxide-free semiconductor surfaces using molecular templates may lead to an efficient bottom-up method for the fabrication of nano-plasmonic structures.

Electrical generation of polarized spins in nonmagnetic materials is of great interest for the underlying physics and device potential. One such mechanism is chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), with which structural chirality leads to different electric conductivities for electrons of opposite spins. The resulting effect of spin filtering has been reported for a number of chiral molecules. However, the microscopic mechanism and manifestation of CISS in practical device structures remain controversial; in particular, the Onsager relation is understood to preclude linear-response detection of CISS by a ferromagnet. Here, we report direct evidence of CISS in two-terminal devices of chiral molecules on the magnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As: In vertical heterojunctions of (Ga,Mn)As/AHPA-L molecules/Au, we observed characteristic linear- and nonlinear-response magnetoconductance, which directly verifies spin filtering by the AHPA-L molecules and spin detection by the (Ga,Mn)As. The results constitute definitive signature of CISS-induced spin valve effect, a core spintronic functionality, in apparent violation of the Onsager reciprocity. The results present a promising route to semiconductor spintronics free of any magnetic material.

We provide analytical and numerical evidence of a spin-triplet FFLO superconductivity in the itinerant Kitaev-Heisenberg model (anti-ferromagnetic Kitaev coupling and ferromagnetic Heisenberg coupling) on the honeycomb lattice around quarter filling. The strong spin-orbit coupling in our model leads to the emergence of 6 inversion symmetry centers for the Fermi surface at non zero momenta in the first Brillouin zone. We show how the Cooper pairs condense into these non-trivial momenta, causing the spatial modulation of the superconducting order parameter. Applying a Ginzburg-Landau expansion analysis, we find that the superconductivity has three separated degenerate ground states with three different spin-triplet pairings. This picture is also supported by exact diagonalizations on finite clusters.

We engineer topological insulating phases in a fermion-fermion mixture on the honeycomb lattice, without resorting to artificial gauge fields or spin-orbit couplings and considering only local interactions. Essentially, upon integrating out the fast component (characterized by a larger hopping amplitude) in a finite region of dopings, we obtain an effective interaction between the slow fermions at half-filling, which acquires a Haldane mass with opposite parity in the two valleys of the Dirac cones, thus triggering a quantum anomalous Hall effect. We carefully analyze the competition between the induced Semenoff-type mass (producing charge density wave orders in real space) versus the Haldane mass (quantum anomalous Hall phase), as a function of the chemical potential of the fast fermions. If the second species involves spin-1/2 particles, this interaction may induce a quantum spin Hall phase. Such fermion-fermion mixtures can be realized in optical lattices or in graphene heterostructures.

We investigate the interplay between topological effects and Mott physics in two dimensions on a graphene-like lattice, via a tight-binding model containing an anisotropic spin-orbit coupling on the next-nearest-neighbour links and the Hubbard interaction. We thoroughly analyze the resulting phases, namely a topological band insulator phase or anisotropic quantum Spin Hall phase until moderate interactions, a N\'eel and Spiral phase at large interactions in the Mott regime, as well as the formation of a spin-orbital texture in the bulk at the Mott transition. The emergent magnetic orders at large interactions are analyzed through a spin wave analysis and mathematical arguments. At weak interactions, by analogy with the Kane-Mele model, the system is described through a Z_2 topological invariant. In addition, we describe how the anisotropic spin-orbit coupling already produces an exotic spin texture at the edges. The physics at the Mott transition is described in terms of a U(1) slave rotor theory. Taking into account gauge fluctuations around the mean-field saddle point solution, we show how the spin texture now proliferates into the bulk above the Mott critical point. The latter emerges from the response of the spinons under the insertion of monopoles and this becomes more pronounced as the spin-orbit coupling becomes prevalent. We discuss implications of our predictions for thin films of the iridate compound Na2IrO3 and also graphene-like systems., Comment: 27 pages, 18 figures, 1 table

We report the first numerical observation of composite fermion (CF) states in fractional Chern insulators (FCI) using exact diagonalization. The ruby lattice Chern insulator model for both fermions and bosons exhibits a clear signature of CF states at filling factors 2/5 and 3/7 (2/3 and 3/4 for bosons). The topological properties of these states are studied through several approaches. Quasihole and quasielectron excitations in FCI display similar features as their fractional quantum hall (FQH) counterparts. The entanglement spectrum of FCI groundstates shows an identical fingerprint to its FQH partner. We show that the correspondence between FCI and FQH obeys the emergent symmetry already established, proving the validity of this approach beyond the clustered states. We investigate other Chern insulator models and find similar signatures of CF states. However, some of these systems exhibit strong finite size effects., Comment: 9 pages with supplementary material, 13 figures, published version