Net Spin Research Articles

Modeling of price and profit in coupled-ring networks

We study the behaviors of magnetization, price, and profit profiles in ring networks in the presence of the external magnetic field. The Ising model is used to determine the state of each node, which is mapped to the buy-or-sell state in a financial market, where +1 is identified as the buying state, and −1 as the selling state. Price and profit mechanisms are modeled based on the assumption that price should increase if demand is larger than supply, and it should decrease otherwise. We find that the magnetization can be induced between two rings via coupling links, where the induced magnetization strength depends on the number of the coupling links. Consequently, the price behaves linearly with time, where its rate of change depends on the magnetization. The profit grows like a quadratic polynomial with coefficients dependent on the magnetization. If two rings have opposite direction of net spins, the price flows in the direction of the majority spins, and the network with the minority spins gets a loss in profit.

Large anomalous Hall effect in a non-collinear antiferromagnet at room temperature

In ferromagnetic conductors, an electric current may induce a transverse voltage drop in zero applied magnetic field: this anomalous Hall effect is observed to be proportional to magnetization, and thus is not usually seen in antiferromagnets in zero field. Recent developments in theory and experiment have provided a framework for understanding the anomalous Hall effect using Berry-phase concepts, and this perspective has led to predictions that, under certain conditions, a large anomalous Hall effect may appear in spin liquids and antiferromagnets without net spin magnetization. Although such a spontaneous Hall effect has now been observed in a spin liquid state, a zero-field anomalous Hall effect has hitherto not been reported for antiferromagnets. Here we report empirical evidence for a large anomalous Hall effect in an antiferromagnet that has vanishingly small magnetization. In particular, we find that Mn3Sn, an antiferromagnet that has a non-collinear 120-degree spin order, exhibits a large anomalous Hall conductivity of around 20 per ohm per centimetre at room temperature and more than 100 per ohm per centimetre at low temperatures, reaching the same order of magnitude as in ferromagnetic metals. Notably, the chiral antiferromagnetic state has a very weak and soft ferromagnetic moment of about 0.002 Bohr magnetons per Mn atom, allowing us to switch the sign of the Hall effect with a small magnetic field of around a few hundred oersted. This soft response of the large anomalous Hall effect could be useful for various applications including spintronics—for example, to develop a memory device that produces almost no perturbing stray fields.

Ferromagnetism in chemically reduced LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 crystals

The ferromagnetism of bulk LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 at room temperature was investigated for the first time in the present work. The stoichiometric LiNbO3 is non-magnetic, while congruent LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 show very weak ferromagnetism. After chemical reduction in a mixture of zinc and lithium carbonate powders under flowing nitrogen, the ferromagnetic behavior of each sample became clear, with an increased value of magnetization. The saturation magnetization, the magnetic remanence and the coercive field of reduced congruent LiNbO3 are 7.0 × 10−3 emu g−1, 0.65 × 10−3 emu g−1 and 0.050 kOe, respectively. The ferromagnetism of chemically reduced LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 can be explained by considering the intrinsic Li vacancies, the appearance of Nb4+ (or Ta4+) on the surface with non-zero net spin and the oxygen vacancies at the surface.

Scaling Relationships for Molecular Adsorption and Dissociation in Lewis Acid Zeolites

Linear scaling relationships between adsorption energies of selected C1 and C2 oxygenates, as well as sulfur-containing compounds, are developed for Lewis acid-substituted zeolites in the chabazite framework. The relationships are shown to hold for dissociative adsorption of molecules cleaving similar classes of bonds, including O–H scission in CH3OH and H2O, C–H scission in CH3OH and CH4, S–H activation in CH3SH and H2S, C–H cleavage in CH2O and CH3CHO, and C–H activation in CH2 and CHOH, where charge is conserved in the zeolite framework. These correlations are explained in terms of bond order conservation arguments that have been previously developed for metal and simple oxide surfaces, and extension of the scaling relationships to Bronsted acid sites is briefly discussed. For adsorbates with nonzero net spin, use of a high accuracy hybrid functional is shown to improve the accuracy of the scaling relationships, while such accuracy does not substantially affect the results for adsorption complexes with...

Spin-dependent transport through a chiral molecule in the presence of spin-orbit interaction and nonunitary effects

Recent experiments have demonstrated the efficacy of chiral helically shaped molecules in polarizing the scattered electron spin, an effect termed as chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS). Here we solve a simple tight-binding model for electron transport through a single helical molecule, with spin-orbit interactions on the bonds along the helix. Quantum interference is introduced via additional electron hopping between neighboring sites in the direction of the helix axis. When the helix is connected to two one-dimensional single-mode leads, time-reversal symmetry prevents spin polarization of the outgoing electrons. One possible way to retrieve such a polarization is to allow leakage of electrons from the helix to the environment, via additional outgoing leads. Technically, the leakage generates complex site self-energies, which break unitarity. As a result, the electron waves in the helix become evanescent, with different decay lengths for different spin polarizations, yielding a net spin polarization of the outgoing electrons, which increases with the length of the helix (as observed experimentally). A maximal polarization can be measured at a finite angle away from the helix axis.

Generation of coherent spin-wave modes in yttrium iron garnet microdiscs by spin-orbit torque.

In recent years, spin–orbit effects have been widely used to produce and detect spin currents in spintronic devices. The peculiar symmetry of the spin Hall effect allows creation of a spin accumulation at the interface between a metal with strong spin–orbit interaction and a magnetic insulator, which can lead to a net pure spin current flowing from the metal into the insulator. This spin current applies a torque on the magnetization, which can eventually be driven into steady motion. Tailoring this experiment on extended films has proven to be elusive, probably due to mode competition. This requires the reduction of both the thickness and lateral size to reach full damping compensation. Here we show clear evidence of coherent spin–orbit torque-induced auto-oscillation in micron-sized yttrium iron garnet discs of thickness 20 nm. Our results emphasize the key role of quasi-degenerate spin-wave modes, which increase the threshold current.

The Role of Aluminum Substitution on the Stability of Substituted Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes

Abstract A first principles density functional theory calculation has been carried out to study the energetics and structural properties of substituted polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) as a function of the POSS cage size. The substitution of Si atom in the POSS molecules has been performed in three different ways, namely (i) both Si and an adjacent H atom are replaced by an Al atom, (ii) only a Si atom is replaced by an Al atom, and (iii) a Si atom is replaced by an Al and a Na/K atom. For the first and third kind of substitution, the net spin state is the same (i.e. closed shell), while the structures corresponding to the second kind of substitution are characterized by an excess spin (i.e. open shell). The structures of substituted POSS for the first and second kind of substitution are greatly distorted and always energetically less stable than the parent structure, while for the third kind of substitution, the stability depends on the cage size of POSS molecule, as also shown in a previous work (Asaduzzaman et al. [1]).

Unraveling Photoinduced Spin Dynamics in the Topological Insulator Bi(2)Se(3).

We report on a time-resolved ultrafast optical spectroscopy study of the topological insulator Bi_{2}Se_{3}. We unravel that a net spin polarization cannot only be generated using circularly polarized light via interband transitions between topological surface states (SSs), but also via transitions between SSs and bulk states. Our experiment demonstrates that tuning photon energy or temperature can essentially allow for photoexcitation of spin-polarized electrons to unoccupied topological SSs with two distinct spin relaxation times (∼25 and ∼300 fs), depending on the coupling between SSs and bulk states. The intrinsic mechanism leading to such distinctive spin dynamics is the scattering in SSs and bulk states which is dominated by E_{g}^{2} and A_{1g}^{1} phonon modes, respectively. These findings are suggestive of novel ways to manipulate the photoinduced coherent spins in topological insulators.

Termination layer compensated tunnelling magnetoresistance in ferrimagnetic Heusler compounds with high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy.

Although high-tunnelling spin polarization has been observed in soft, ferromagnetic, and predicted for hard, ferrimagnetic Heusler materials, there has been no experimental observation to date of high-tunnelling magnetoresistance in the latter. Here we report the preparation of highly textured, polycrystalline Mn3Ge films on amorphous substrates, with very high magnetic anisotropy fields exceeding 7 T, making them technologically relevant. However, the small and negative tunnelling magnetoresistance that we find is attributed to predominant tunnelling from the lower moment Mn–Ge termination layers that are oppositely magnetized to the higher moment Mn–Mn layers. The net spin polarization of the current reflects the different proportions of the two distinct termination layers and their associated tunnelling matrix elements that result from inevitable atomic scale roughness. We show that by engineering the spin polarization of the two termination layers to be of the same sign, even though these layers are oppositely magnetized, high-tunnelling magnetoresistance is possible.

Kondo-induced hybrid topological insulator in two-dimensional electron system with a quadratic band crossing point

We investigate the Kondo effect in the two-dimensional electron system with a non-trivial quadratic energy band crossing point. We show that the Kondo effect can induce a new hybrid topological insulator phase which is a coexistence state of the quantum anomalous Hall effect and the TRSbroken quantum spin Hall effect. This hybrid topological insulator exhibits not only a quantized charge Hall current but also a net spin current, which are localized at the edge boundaries. This peculiar topological state arises due to the interplay of two marginally relevant operators, i.e., the Kondo-coupling between the electrons and the local magnetic moment and the electron-electron interaction in the two-dimensional system.

First-Principles Calculations of Magnetism in Nanoscale Carbon Materials Confining Metal with f Valence Electrons

The f electrons in the unfilled shell of actinide and lanthanide display complex bonding behavior and the hybridized sp electrons in carbon could show spin polarization in finite nanostructures. Correspondingly, materials combining these two features exhibit abundant magnetic properties. In this paper, we outline our first-principles calculations on various nanoscale carbon materials confining U and Gd which are representative actinide and lanthanide, respectively. The complex interaction between f electrons and sp electrons make the induced magnetic property sensitive to metal specie and carbon confinement. Specially, (1) The magnetism could be suppressed by stronger adsorption with vacancy sites on graphene and adjusted by varying the valence state of some endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs). (2) The magnetic coupling between metal and carbon structures could be promoted by large curvature when confinement site is carbon nanotubes and altered by the adatom defect on fullerene cages. (3) Untrivial magnetic property with large net spin and asymmetric spin distribution is obtained by confining U atom and Gd atom in one fullerene as a heteronuclear EMF. These results contribute to a systematic understanding of the magnetism in nanoscale carbon materials confining metal with f valence electrons.

Large anomalous Hall effect in a non-collinear antiferromagnet at room temperature.

In ferromagnetic conductors, an electric current may induce a transverse voltage drop in zero applied magnetic field: this anomalous Hall effect is observed to be proportional to magnetization, and thus is not usually seen in antiferromagnets in zero field. Recent developments in theory and experiment have provided a framework for understanding the anomalous Hall effect using Berry-phase concepts, and this perspective has led to predictions that, under certain conditions, a large anomalous Hall effect may appear in spin liquids and antiferromagnets without net spin magnetization. Although such a spontaneous Hall effect has now been observed in a spin liquid state, a zero-field anomalous Hall effect has hitherto not been reported for antiferromagnets. Here we report empirical evidence for a large anomalous Hall effect in an antiferromagnet that has vanishingly small magnetization. In particular, we find that Mn3Sn, an antiferromagnet that has a non-collinear 120-degree spin order, exhibits a large anomalous Hall conductivity of around 20 per ohm per centimetre at room temperature and more than 100 per ohm per centimetre at low temperatures, reaching the same order of magnitude as in ferromagnetic metals. Notably, the chiral antiferromagnetic state has a very weak and soft ferromagnetic moment of about 0.002 Bohr magnetons per Mn atom (refs 10, 12), allowing us to switch the sign of the Hall effect with a small magnetic field of around a few hundred oersted. This soft response of the large anomalous Hall effect could be useful for various applications including spintronics--for example, to develop a memory device that produces almost no perturbing stray fields.

Investigations on thermodynamic properties of the three sub-lattice spin frustrated chain

The spin frustration related to the high-[Formula: see text] superconductivity has received much attention. In this paper, based on the Jordan–Wigner transformation and Green’s function method, we study the magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the three sub-lattice spin frustrated chains. It is found that there are three branches for the spin–wave excitation spectra at zero temperature. Among them, two belong to nature excitation patterns with antiferromagnetic interaction and the third one is band gap excitation spectrum with ferromagnetic nature. The specific heat capacity of sub-lattice spin system presents complex characteristics with the change of temperature due to the intense competition between the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions. It is also shown that the increase of the ferromagnetic action is helpful to the value of net spin.

Direct optical detection of current induced spin accumulation in metals by magnetization-induced second harmonic generation

Strong spin-orbit coupling in non-magnetic heavy metals has been shown to lead to large spin currents flowing transverse to a charge current in such a metal wire. This in turn leads to the buildup of a net spin accumulation at the lateral surfaces of the wire. Spin-orbit torque effects enable the use of the accumulated spins to exert useful magnetic torques on adjacent magnetic layers in spintronic devices. We report the direct detection of spin accumulation at the free surface of nonmagnetic metal films using magnetization-induced optical surface second harmonic generation. The technique is applied to probe the current induced surface spin accumulation in various heavy metals such as Pt, β-Ta, and Au with high sensitivity. The sensitivity of the technique enables us to measure the time dynamics on a sub-ns time scale of the spin accumulation arising from a short current pulse. The ability of optical surface second harmonic generation to probe interfaces suggests that this technique will also be useful for studying the dynamics of spin accumulation and transport across interfaces between non-magnetic and ferromagnetic materials, where spin-orbit torque effects are of considerable interest.

Correlation between charge transfer and exchange coupling in carbon-based magnetic materials

Several forms of carbon-based magnetic materials, i.e. single radicals, radical dimers, and alternating stacks of radicals and diamagnetic molecules, have been investigated using density-functional theory with dispersion correction and full geometry optimization. Our calculated results demonstrate that the C31H15 (R4) radical has a spin of ½. However, in its [R4]2 dimer structure, the net spin becomes zero due to antiferromagnetic spin-exchange between radicals. To avoid antiferromagnetic spin-exchange of identical face-to-face radicals, eight alternating stacks, R4/D2m/R4 (with m = 3-10), were designed. Our calculated results show that charge transfer (Δn) between R4 radicals and the diamagnetic molecule D2m occurs with a mechanism of spin exchange (J) in stacks. The more electrons that transfer from R4 to D2m, the stronger the ferromagnetic spin-exchange in stacks. In addition, our calculated results show that Δn can be tailored by adjusting the electron affinity (Ea) of D2m. The correlation between Δn, Ea, m, and J is discussed. These results give some hints for the design of new ferromagnetic carbon-based materials.

Monte Carlo and Experimental Magnetic Studies of Molecular Spintronics Devices

Molecule-based spintronics devices (MSDs) are highly promising candidates for discovering advanced logic and memory computer units. An advanced MSD will require the placement of paramagnetic molecules between the two ferromagnetic (FM) electrodes. Due to extreme fabrication challenges, only a couple of experimental studies could be performed to understand the effect of magnetic molecules on the overall magnetic and transport properties of MSDs. To date, theoretical studies mainly focused on charge and spin transport aspects of MSDs; there is a dearth of knowledge about the effect of magnetic molecules on the magnetic properties of MSDs. This paper investigates the effect of magnetic molecules, with a net spin, on the magnetic properties of 2D MSDs via Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Our MC simulations encompass a wide range of MSDs that can be realized by establishing different kinds of magnetic interactions between molecules and FM electrodes at different temperatures. The MC simulations show that ambient thermal energy strongly influenced the molecular coupling effect on the MSD. We studied the nature and strength of molecule couplings (FM and antiferromagnetic) with the two electrodes on the magnetization, specific heat and magnetic susceptibility of MSDs. For the case when the nature of molecule interaction was FM with one electrode and antiferromagnetic with another electrode the overall magnetization shifted toward zero. In this case, the effect of molecules was also a strong function of the nature and strength of direct coupling between FM electrodes. In the case when molecules make opposite magnetic couplings with the two FM electrodes, the MSD model used for MC studies resembled with the magnetic tunnel junction based MSD. The experimental magnetic studies on these devices are in agreement with our theoretical MC simulations results. Our MC simulations will enable the fundamental understanding and designing of a wide range of novel spintronics devices utilizing a variety of molecules, nanoclusters and quantum dots as the device elements.

Spin currents and filtering behavior in zigzag graphene nanoribbons with adsorbed molybdenum chains

By means of density-functional-theoretic calculations, we investigated the structural, electronic and transport properties of hydrogen-passivated zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs) on which a one-atom-thick Mo chain was adsorbed (with or without one or two missing atoms), or in which the passivating hydrogen atoms were replaced by Mo atoms. Mo-passivated ZGNRs proved to be nonmagnetic. ZGNRs with an adsorbed defect-free Mo chain were most stable with the Mo atoms forming dimers above edge bay sites, which suppressed the magnetic moments of the C atoms in that half of the ribbon; around the Fermi level of these systems, each spin component had a transmission channel via the Mo spz band and one had an additional channel created by polarization of the ZGNR π* band, leading to a net spin current. The absence of an Mo dimer from an Mo chain adsorbed at the ZGNR edge made the system a perfect spin filter at low voltage bias by suppressing the Mo spz band channels. Thus this last kind of hybrid system is a potential spin valve.

Landau level spin diode in a GaAs two dimensional hole system

We have fabricated and characterized a Landau level spin diode in a GaAs two-dimensional hole system. We used the spin diode to probe the hyperfine coupling between hole and nuclear spins and found no detectable net nuclear spin polarization, indicating that hole–nuclear spin flip-flop processes are suppressed by at least factor of 50 compared to GaAs electron systems.

Spontaneous edge accumulation of spin currents in finite-size two-dimensional diffusive spin–orbit coupled SFS heterostructures

We theoretically study spin and charge currents through finite-size two-dimensional s-wave superconductor/uniform ferromagnet/s-wave superconductor (S/F/S) junctions with intrinsic spin–orbit interactions (ISOIs) using a quasiclassical approach. Considering experimentally realistic parameters, we demonstrate that the combination of spontaneously broken time-reversal symmetry and lack of inversion symmetry can result in spontaneously accumulated spin currents at the edges of finite-size two-dimensional magnetic S/F/S hybrids. Due to the spontaneous edge spin accumulation, the corners of the F wire host the maximum spin current density. We further reveal that this type edge phenomena is robust and independent of either the actual type of ISOIs or exchange field orientation. Moreover, we study the spin current-phase relations in these diffusive spin–orbit coupled S/F/S junctions. Our results unveil net spin currents, not accompanied by charge supercurrents, that spontaneously accumulate at the sample edges through a modulating superconducting phase difference. Finally, we discuss possible experimental implementations to observe these edge phenomena.

Impurity-induced magnetic moments on the graphene-lattice Hubbard model: An inhomogeneous cluster dynamical mean-field theory study

Defect-induced magnetic moments are at the center of the research effort on spintronic applications of graphene. Here, we study the problem of a nonmagnetic impurity in graphene with a new theoretical method, inhomogeneous cluster dynamical mean-field theory (I-CDMFT), which takes into account interaction-induced short-range correlations while allowing long-range inhomogeneities. The system is described by a Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice. The impurity is modeled by a local potential. For a large enough potential, interactions induce local antiferromagnetic correlations around the impurity and a net total spin $\frac{1}{2}$ appears, in agreement with Lieb's theorem. Bound states caused by the impurity are visible in the local density of states (LDOS) and have their energies shifted by interactions in a spin-dependent way, leading to the antiferromagnetic correlations. Our results take into account dynamical correlations; nevertheless they qualitatively agree with previous mean-field and density functional theory (DFT) studies. Moreover, they provide a relation between impurity potential and on-site repulsion $U$ that could in principle be used to determine experimentally the value of $U$.