Magnitude Of Spin Polarization Research Articles

Regulation of chiral structure and spin polarization by circularly polarized light and electric field in copolymers

Combining chirality with ferromagnetism is challenging in organic materials and may bring potential application for the cross-integration of multiple disciplines. In this work, we achieved the intrinsic coexistence of chirality and spontaneous spin polarization in the diblock copolymers, where left-handed and right-handed circularly polarized lights present tunability on both the circular dichroism and spin polarization. Without electron dependence of transport in chiral copolymer, chirality is still coupled with spin. The phenomenon observed here is not the traditional chirality induced spin selectivity effect. Moreover, the electric field could also effectively tune the chirality dependence of circular dichroism to further affect the magnitude of spin polarization. Thus, a strong relationship between the chirality and spin polarization is formed in chiral copolymers. In addition, because of the different molecular packing for chiral enantiomers, electron–phonon coupling strengths are different to lead to a difference in spin polarization. Overall, the properties of chirality, spontaneous spin polarization, and photon-chirality-spin coupling are developed and studied, which effectively promotes the ability of potential applications of chiral copolymers.

Spin-dependent resonant Andreev tunneling in hybrid ferromagnetic metal–magnetic quantum dot–superconductor nanostructures

There exists a variety of theoretical proposals to transform states induced by magnetic nanoparticles inside a superconducting gap into Majorana fermion states. The main challenge in this route is a conclusive proof and undoubted distinguishing between topologically trivial subgap Andreev bound states and topologically nontrivial magnetically polarized Majorana bound states. This motivated us to investigate a nonequilibrium electrons tunneling through a ferromagnetic normal metal–magnetic quantum dot–s-wave superconductor (F-mQD-SC) nanostructure, where the mQD’s discrete levels are spin splitted. By using the Keldysh Green’s function method, the expressions for a tunnel current and probability of the Andreev reflection (AR) versus energy are derived and studied. We find that the system’s resonant ARs conductance exhibits different kinds of peaks depending on a spin splitting of the mQD levels, the spin polarization magnitude of the F-lead current, the gate voltage, and an external magnetic field magnitude. The nanostructure’s conductance versus a bias voltage exhibits extra peaks which at some combination of its parameters can mimic ones expected for Majorana modes in a topological superconducting state. The distinguishing transport characteristics of a F-mQD-SC nanoscale structure being in non-topological state are discussed. We suggest that the results obtained can provide helpful clarification for understanding recent experiments in superconductor–ferromagnet hybrid nanostructures with topologically protected excitations.

Helicity-dependent optical modulation of polaron spin current in organic semiconductors

The optical response of the transmitting polaron in π-conjugated organic semiconductor to the circularly polarized pulse is theoretically studied. Depending on the helicity of the circularly polarized light, polaron spin flip is achieved within femtoseconds without applying magnetic field, leading to the spin polarization of the polaron current. The magnitude of spin polarization can be modulated by tuning the frequency and amplitude of the circularly polarized light. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the conversions between spin-depolarization and spin-polarization of the polaron current can be repeatedly triggered by applying a series of circularly polarized pulses until the polaron dissociates. Our work suggests a new prospect for all-optically controlling spin current in the organic spintronic devices.

Unusual Spin Polarization in the Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity.

Chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) refers to the fact that electrons get spin polarized after passing through chiral molecules in a nanoscale transport device or in photoemission experiments. In CISS, chiral molecules are commonly believed to be a spin filter through which one favored spin transmits and the opposite spin gets reflected; that is, transmitted and reflected electrons exhibit opposite spin polarization. In this work, we point out that such a spin filter scenario contradicts the principle that equilibrium spin current must vanish. Instead, we find that both transmitted and reflected electrons present the same type of spin polarization, which is actually ubiquitous for a two-terminal device. More accurately, chiral molecules play the role of a spin polarizer rather than a spin filter. The direction of spin polarization is determined by the molecule chirality and the electron incident direction. And the magnitude of spin polarization relies on local spin-orbit coupling in the device. Our work brings a deeper understanding on CISS and interprets recent experiments, for example, the CISS-driven anomalous Hall effect.

Bipolar Magnetic Molecules for Spin‐Polarized Electric Current in Molecular Junctions

AbstractElectrical control of spin transport at single molecule level is highly desired for molecular nanospintronics. By exploiting magnetic bistability of spin crossover complexes, the magnitude of spin polarization can be modulated. However, efficiently controlling the direction of spin polarization at single molecule level is still challenging. Here, we propose a general method to flip the transport electron spin simply by electrical gating in single molecule devices based on bipolar magnetic molecules (BMMs), of which the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) come from different spin channels. Thus, when the device's Fermi level is reversibly adjusted approaching either HOMO or LUMO by changing the polarity of the applied voltage gate, a 100 % spin polarized current with switchable spin direction is achievable. The proposed method is verified by the calculated electronic and transport properties of 9 potential transition metal coordination BMMs.

Bipolar Magnetic Molecules for Spin-Polarized Electric Current in Molecular Junctions.

Electrical control of spin transport at single molecule level is highly desired for molecular nanospintronics. By exploiting magnetic bistability of spin crossover complexes, the magnitude of spin polarization can be modulated. However, efficiently controlling the direction of spin polarization at single molecule level is still challenging. Here, we propose a general method to flip the transport electron spin simply by electrical gating in single molecule devices based on bipolar magnetic molecules (BMMs), of which the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) come from different spin channels. Thus, when the device's Fermi level is reversibly adjusted approaching either HOMO or LUMO by changing the polarity of the applied voltage gate, a 100 % spin polarized current with switchable spin direction is achievable. The proposed method is verified by the calculated electronic and transport properties of 9 potential transition metal coordination BMMs.

Organic Chiral Spin‐Optics: The Interaction between Spin and Photon in Organic Chiral Materials

AbstractRecently, the spin‐dependent effects in chiral materials are being intensively explored due to requirements of fundamental research and technological applications. In organic chiral materials, there is a strong electron−phonon coupling, which will affect the magnitude of spin polarization. Moreover, the chirality‐generated orbital angular momentum can also affect spin polarization. Thus, the coupling among the electron spin, orbit, lattice, and photon can be effectively enhanced in organic chiral materials, which allows the existence of magneto‐chiral dichroism, chirality‐induced spin selection effects, magnetic field dependence of circularly polarized light emission and transmission. Recent studies on the electron spin and photon interaction in organic chiral materials are presented and understood here, which provides guidance for the future development and application in organic chiral spin‐optics.

Strain-modulated electronic and magnetic properties of Co2TMAl

Discovery of magnetism in full-Heusler compounds opens up new opportunities due to their potential applications in spintronics. Here, we investigated the electronic and magnetic properties of full-Heusler Co2TMAl (TM = Ti, V, Cr, Mn, and Fe) compounds via strain engineering using density functional theory. It is found that biaxial strains along the ab-plane substantially affects the bond lengths, which further tune the magnetic moment and spin polarization (SP). The reorientation of the hybridization between TM and Co orbitals results in the variation of charge confinement that optimized physical properties. The most striking feature of the present study is the unusual response of Co2CrAl and Co2MnAl as a function of strain. For Co2CrAl, the robust half-metallicity is achieved under the biaxial compressive strains ranging from −1% to −5%, while tensile strain shows a negative impact. In the case of Co2MnAl, a substantial enhancement (decrease) in the SP magnitude is evident for compressive (tensile) strain. Hence, we affirm that strain can be an efficient way to tune the physical properties of Heusler compounds.

Observation of magnetic field sweep direction dependent dynamic nuclear polarization under periodic optical electron spin pumping

Optical pump-probe techniques are used to generate and measure electron spin polarization in a gallium arsenide epilayer in which the electron spin coherence time exceeds the mode-locked laser repetition period. Resonant spin amplification occurs at magnetic fields at which the electron spin polarization excited by successive laser pulses add constructively. Measurements of Kerr rotation as a function of applied magnetic field reveal nuclear spin polarization that aligns either with or against the external magnetic field depending on whether the applied magnetic field is being decreased or increased. Furthermore, the nuclear spin polarization magnitude varies in proportion to the perpendicular net electron spin polarization as the latter changes due to resonant spin amplification and other causes. We also report an experimental technique that reveals a minutes-long memory of precise field history in the electron-nuclear spin system.

Quantum anomalous Hall effect in magnetically modulated topological insulator/normal insulator heterostructures

We theoretically study how magnetic modulation can be used to manipulate the transport properties of heterostructures formed by a thin film of a three-dimensional topological insulator sandwiched between slabs of a normal insulator. Employing the k ∙ p scheme, in the framework of a continual approach, we argue that electron states of the system are spin-polarized when ultrathin magnetic insertions are incorporated into the film. We demonstrate that (i) the spin-polarization magnitude depends strongly on the magnetic insertion position in the film and (ii) there is the optimal insertion position to realize quantum anomalous Hall effect, which is a function of the material parameters, the film thickness and the topological insulator/normal insulator interface potential. For the heterostructure with a pair of symmetrically placed magnetic insertions, we calculate a phase diagram that shows a series of transitions between distinct quantum regimes of transverse conductivity. We provide consistent interpretation of recent experimental findings in the context of our results.

Spin Polarization and Texture of the Fermi Arcs in the Weyl Fermion Semimetal TaAs.

A Weyl semimetal is a new state of matter that hosts Weyl fermions as quasiparticle excitations. The Weyl fermions at zero energy correspond to points of bulk-band degeneracy, called Weyl nodes, which are separated in momentum space and are connected only through the crystal's boundary by an exotic Fermi arc surface state. We experimentally measure the spin polarization of the Fermi arcs in the first experimentally discovered Weyl semimetal TaAs. Our spin data, for the first time, reveal that the Fermi arcs' spin-polarization magnitude is as large as 80% and lies completely in the plane of the surface. Moreover, we demonstrate that the chirality of the Weyl nodes in TaAs cannot be inferred by the spin texture of the Fermi arcs. The observed nondegenerate property of the Fermi arcs is important for establishing its exact topological nature, which reveals that spins on the arc form a novel type of 2D matter. Additionally, the nearly full spin polarization we observed (∼80%) may be useful in spintronic applications.

On the possibility of contact-induced spin polarization in interfaces of armchair nanotubes with transition metal substrates

The interaction between armchair carbon and boron nitride nanotubes (NT) with ferromagnetic transition metal (TM) surfaces, namely, Ni(111) and Co(0001), was studied by means of density functional theory. Different configurations of composite compartments mutual arrangement were considered. Partial densities of states and spin density spatial distribution of optimized structures were investigated. Influence of ferromagnetic substrate on nanotubes’ electronic properties was discussed. The values of spin polarization magnitude at the Fermi level are also presented and confirm the patterns of spin density spatial distribution.

Spin transport for a quantum wire with coexistence of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in quantum wire and two leads

We theoretically investigate the spin-dependent conductance, the total conductance and the spin polarization of a quantum wire with the coexistence of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in the quantum wire and two leads, respectively. First, we find that the Rashba or Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in the quantum wire induces the split of spin-dependent conductance and forms the out-of-plane spin polarization. Moreover, when Rashba strength or Dresselhaus strength in the quantum wire increases, the split of conductance is enlarged and the intensity of spin polarization is enhanced accordingly. Furthermore, when two spin-orbit couplings coexist in the quantum wire and two leads, the addition of spin-orbit coupling in two leads expands the oscillation ranges of conductance plateaus and spin polarization, respectively, and further strengthens the magnitude of spin polarization. In particular, when the Rashba coupling in two leads exists and the quantum wire is wide, the total conductance jumps to upper conductance plateaus and the direction of spin polarization changes, while for the Dresselhaus coupling no such results exist. Our calculations indicate that one can realize the modulation of the strength and direction of spin polarization by altering the width of wire, the Rashba or Dresselhaus strength in quantum wire, the Rashba or Dresselhaus strength in two leads, respectively, which may be used to design the spin filter.

Effective Nuclear Field Measurement in a Single Quantum Well via Time-Resolved Kerr Rotation Technique

Effective magnetic field of nuclear spin polarization (NSP) under circularly polarized pumps excitation and the dephasing time of resident electron spin polarization under pump and control excitation has been detected in a single CdTe quantum well (QW) by a time-resolved Kerr rotation (TRKR) technique. We deduced that the experimental method is verified with the effect, to a certain extent, through confirming the external magnetic field results. In addition, the nuclear field is revealed to be increased with the increasing electron spin component due to the enhanced electron-nuclear hyperfine interaction. Significant nuclear field is observed as 1.85 mT with the applied magnetic field tilted by about 15 degree. What is more, we found the spin dephasing time (SDT) has little relation with the created NSP field, but it decreases largely with the increasing spin polarization magnitude under pump excitation and the spin vector dispersions induced by control pulses.

Effects of surface-bulk hybridization in three-dimensional topological metals

Identifying the effects of surface-bulk coupling is a key challenge towards exploiting the topological nature of the surface states in many available three-dimensional topological `metals'. Here we combine an effective-model calculation and an ab-initio slab calculation to study the effects of the lowest order surface-bulk interaction: the hybridization. In the effective-model study, we discretize an established low-energy effective four-band model and introduce the hybridization between the surface bands and bulk bands in the spirit of the Fano model. We find that the hybridization enhances the energy gap between bulk and Dirac surface states and preserves the latter's spin texture qualitatively albeit with a reduced spin-polarization magnitude. Our ab-initio study finds the energy gap between the bulk and surface states to grow upon an increase in the slab thickness, very much in qualitative agreement with the effective model study. Comparing the results of our two approaches, we deduce that the experimentally observed low magnitude of spin polarization can be attributed to a hybridization-type surface-bulk interaction. We discuss evidences for such hybridization in existing ARPES data.

Contact effects in spin transport along double-helical molecules

We report on spin transport along double-helical molecular systems by considering various contact configurations and asymmetries between the two helical strands in the regime of completely coherent charge transport. Our results reveal that no spin polarization appears in two-terminal molecular devices when coupled to one-dimensional electrodes. The same holds in the case of finite-width electrodes if there is a \emph{bottleneck} of one single site in the system electrode--molecule--electrode. Then, additional dephasing is necessary to induce spin-filtering effects. In contrast, nonzero spin polarization is found in molecular devices with multiple terminals or with two finite-width electrodes, each of them connected to more than one site of the molecule. Then, the magnitude of spin polarization can be enhanced by increasing the asymmetry between the two strands. We point out that the spin-filtering effects could emerge in double-helical molecular devices at low temperature without dephasing by a proper choice of the electrode number and the connection between the molecule and the electrodes.

Maximum magnitude in bias-dependent spin accumulation signals of CoFe/MgO/Si on insulator devices

We study in detail how the bias voltage (Vbias) and interface resistance (RA) depend on the magnitude of spin accumulation signals (|ΔV| or |ΔV|/I, where I is current) as detected by three-terminal Hanle measurements in CoFe/MgO/Si on insulator (SOI) devices with various MgO layer thicknesses and SOI carrier densities. We find the apparent maximum magnitude of spin polarization as a function of Vbias and the correlation between the magnitude of spin accumulation signals and the shape of differential conductance (dI/dV) curves within the framework of the standard spin diffusion model. All of the experimental results can be explained by taking into account the density of states (DOS) in CoFe under the influence of the applied Vbias and the quality of MgO tunnel barrier. These results indicate that it is important to consider the DOS of the ferromagnetic materials under the influence of an applied Vbias and the quality of tunnel barrier when observing large spin accumulation signals in Si.

Spin current and polarization reversal through a single-molecule magnet with ferromagnetic electrodes

We theoretically study the spin-polarized transport through a single-molecule magnet, which is weakly coupled to ferromagnetic leads, by means of the rate-equation approach. We consider both the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic exchange-couplings between the molecular magnet and transported electron-spin in the nonlinear tunneling regime. For the ferromagnetic exchange-coupling, spin current exhibits step- and basin-like behaviors in the parallel and antiparallel configurations respectively. An interesting observation is that the polarization reversal of spin-current can be realized and manipulated by the variation of bias voltage in the case of antiferromagnetic exchange-coupling with antiparallel lead-configuration, which may be useful in the development of spintronic devices, while the bias voltage can only affect the magnitude of spin-polarization in the ferromagnetic coupling.

Spin Polarization and Transport of Surface States in the Topological InsulatorsBi2Se3andBi2Te3from First Principles

We investigate the band dispersion and the spin texture of topologically protected surface states in the bulk topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 by first-principles methods. Strong spin-orbit entanglement in these materials reduces the spin polarization of the surface states to ∼50% in both cases; this reduction is absent in simple models but of important implications to essentially any spintronic application. We propose a way of controlling the magnitude of spin polarization associated with a charge current in thin films of topological insulators by means of an external electric field. The proposed dual-gate device configuration provides new possibilities for electrical control of spin.

Phase-breaking effects in double-barrier resonant tunneling diodes with spin-orbit interaction

Several recent theoretical studies showed that the spin-orbit interaction in narrow gap InGaAs/InAlAs double-barrier resonant tunneling structures might yield a highly spin-polarized current in the ballistic limit. In this paper, a nonequilibrium Green’s function model is used to examine the effect of phase-breaking on the spin-dependent transport of carriers. The scattering is described as a local interaction with a bath of scatterers and treated in the self-consistent first Born approximation. Elastic and inelastic scatterers, with scattering strengths that cause a few millielectron volt broadening of quasibound states, have been found to significantly reduce the spin polarization. The magnitude of spin polarization has been found to be dominantly determined by the quasibound state broadening, while the interaction details are not significant.