Abstract
Understanding the flow of spins in magnetic layered structures has resulted in an increase in data storage density in hard drives over the past decade of more than two orders of magnitude1. Following this remarkable success, the field of ‘spintronics’ or spin-based electronics1,2,3 is moving beyond effects based on local spin polarization and is turning towards spin–orbit interaction (SOI) effects, which hold promise for the production, detection and manipulation of spin currents, allowing coherent transmission of information within a device1,2. Although SOI-induced spin transport effects have been observed in two- and three-dimensional samples, these have been subtle and elusive, often detected only indirectly in electrical transport or else with more sophisticated techniques4,5,6,7,8,9. Here we present the first observation of a predicted ‘spin–orbit gap’ in a one-dimensional sample, where counter-propagating spins, constituting a spin current, are accompanied by a clear signal in the easily measured linear conductance of the system10,11. We first introduce the class of phenomena we dub ‘the one-dimensional spin–orbit gap’ using a simple example adapted from ref. 10, then describe our experiment in detail and finally present a more elaborate model that captures most of the features seen in our data.
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Acknowledgements
We thank P. Joyez, M. A. Wistey, J. E. Moore and A. S. Goldhaber for helpful discussions and/or comments on the manuscript. J.A.S. acknowledges support from a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship, C.Q.H.L. support from a Harvey Fellowship and Bell Labs, and D.G.-G. a Fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and a Hellman Faculty Scholar Award. Work at Stanford was primarily supported by the AFOSR under contracts FA9550-04-1-0384 (PECASE) and FA9550-08-1-0427.
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K.W.W. and L.N.P. carried out the molecular beam epitaxy growth, R.d.P. and C.Q.H.L. the rest of the sample fabrication. K.W.B. characterized the 2DHGs before the cleave as well as control samples from the overgrowth step. R.d.P., C.Q.H.L. and J.A.S. carried out measurements. T.L.H. derived the theoretical model with input from R.d.P. and C.Q.H.L. C.Q.H.L., R.d.P., D.G.-G., T.L.H. and J.A.S. analysed the data. C.Q.H.L. wrote the manuscript together with R.d.P., D.G.G. and T.L.H. R.d.P. and L.N.P. had the idea for the experiment.
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Quay, C., Hughes, T., Sulpizio, J. et al. Observation of a one-dimensional spin–orbit gap in a quantum wire. Nature Phys 6, 336–339 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1626
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1626
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