We experimentally investigate spin-polarized electron transport between two ferromagnetic contacts, placed at the edge of a two-dimensional electron system with band inversion. The system is realized in a narrow (8~nm) HgTe quantum well, the ferromagnetic side contacts are formed from a pre-magnetized permalloy film. In zero magnetic field, we find a significant edge current contribution to the transport between two ferromagnetic contacts. We experimentally demonstrate that this transport is sensitive to the mutual orientation of the magnetization directions of two 200~μm-spaced ferromagnetic leads. This is a direct experimental evidence on the spin-coherent edge transport over the macroscopic distances. Thus, the spin is extremely robust at the edge of a two-dimensional electron system with band inversion, confirming the helical spin-resolved nature of edge currents.
@article{arxiv.1505.04535,
title = {Evidence on the macroscopic length scale spin coherence for the edge currents in a narrow HgTe quantum well},
author = {A. Kononov and S. V. Egorov and Z. D. Kvon and N. N. Mikhailov and S. A. Dvoretsky and E. V. Deviatov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.04535},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1410.0585