Experimental observation of the spin-Hall effect in a two dimensional spin-orbit coupled semiconductor system
Abstract
We report the experimental observation of the spin-Hall effect in a two-dimensional (2D) hole system with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The 2D hole layer is a part of a p-n junction light-emitting diode with a specially designed co-planar geometry which allows an angle-resolved polarization detection at opposite edges of the 2D hole system. In equilibrium the angular momenta of the Rashba split heavy hole states lie in the plane of the 2D layer. When an electric field is applied across the hole channel a non zero out-of-plane component of the angular momentum is detected whose sign depends on the sign of the electric field and is opposite for the two edges. Microscopic quantum transport calculations show only a weak effect of disorder suggesting that the clean limit spin-Hall conductance description (intrinsic spin-Hall effect) might apply to our system.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0410295,
title = {Experimental observation of the spin-Hall effect in a two dimensional spin-orbit coupled semiconductor system},
author = {Joerg Wunderlich and Bernd Kaestner and Jairo Sinova and Tomas Jungwirth},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0410295},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures, paper based on work presented at the Gordon Research Conference on Magnetic Nano-structures (August 2004) and Oxford Kobe Seminar on Spintronics (September 2004); accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters December 2004