English

Giant spin rotation in the normal metal/quantum spin Hall junction

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2009-04-28 v1

Abstract

We study theoretically reflection problem in the junction between a normal metal and an insulator characterized by a parameter MM, which is a usual insulator for M>0M>0 or a quantum spin Hall system for M<0M<0. The spin rotation angle α\alpha at the reflection is obtained in the plane of MM and the incident angle θ\theta measured from the normal to the interface. The α\alpha shows rich structures around the quantum critical point M=0 and θ=0\theta=0, i.e., α\alpha can be as large as π\sim \pi at an incident angle in the quatum spin Hall case M<0M<0 because the helical edge modes resonantly enhance the spin rotation, which can be used to map the energy dispersion of the helical edge modes. As an experimentally relevant system, we also study spin rotation effect in quantum spin Hall/normal metal/quantum spin Hall trilayer junction.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0901.0438,
  title  = {Giant spin rotation in the normal metal/quantum spin Hall junction},
  author = {Takehito Yokoyama and Yukio Tanaka and Naoto Nagaosa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0901.0438},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:57:31.832Z