Full-zone persistent spin textures with giant spin splitting in two-dimensional group IV–V compounds

Abstract

Persistent spin texture (PST), a property of solid-state materials maintaining unidirectional spin polarization in the momentum k-space, offers a route to deliver the necessary long carrier spin lifetimes through the persistent spin helix (PSH) mechanism. However, most of the discovered PST locally occurred in the small part around certain high symmetry k-points or lines in the first Brillouin zone (FBZ), thus limiting the stability of the PSH state. Herein, by symmetry analysis and first-principles calculations, we report the emergence of full-zone PST (FZPST), a phenomenon displaying the PST in the whole FBZ, in the two-dimensional group IV–V (A = Si, Sn, Ge; B = Bi, Sb) compounds. Due to the existence of the in-plane mirror symmetry operation in the wave vector point group symmetry for the arbitrary in the whole FBZ, fully out-of-plane spin polarization is observed in the k-space, thus maintaining the FZPST. Importantly, we observed giant spin splitting in which the PST sustains, supporting large spin–orbit coupling parameters and small wavelengths of the PSH states. Our analysis demonstrated that the FZPST is robust for the non-degenerate bands, which can be effectively controlled by the application of an external electric field, thus offering a promising platform for future spintronic applications.