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Spatial imaging of the spin Hall effect and current-induced polarization in two-dimensional electron gases

Nature Physics volume 1, pages 31–35 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Spin–orbit coupling in semiconductors relates the spin of an electron to its momentum, and provides a pathway for electrically initializing and manipulating electron spins for applications in spintronics1 and spin-based quantum information processing2. This coupling can be regulated with quantum confinement in semiconductor heterostructures through band-structure engineering. Here we investigate the spin Hall effect3,4 and current-induced spin polarization5,6 in a two-dimensional electron gas confined in (110) AlGaAs quantum wells using Kerr rotation microscopy. In contrast to previous measurements7,8,9,10, the spin Hall profile shows complex structure and the current-induced spin polarization is out-of-plane. The experiments map the strong dependence of the current-induced spin polarization to the crystal axis along which the electric field is applied, reflecting the anisotropy of the spin–orbit interaction. These results reveal opportunities for tuning a spin source using quantum confinement and device engineering in non-magnetic materials.

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Figure 1: The spin Hall effect in a 2DEG.
Figure 2: Current-induced spin polarization in a 2DEG.
Figure 3: Spin polarization near the edges of a channel oriented along .
Figure 4: Voltage dependence of the electrically induced spin polarization.
Figure 5: Measurement of the Bychkov–Rashba spin splitting.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from ARO, DARPA, NSF and ONR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

    V. Sih, R. C. Myers, Y. K. Kato, W. H. Lau, A. C. Gossard & D. D. Awschalom

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  1. V. Sih
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  2. R. C. Myers
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  3. Y. K. Kato
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Correspondence to D. D. Awschalom.

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Sih, V., Myers, R., Kato, Y. et al. Spatial imaging of the spin Hall effect and current-induced polarization in two-dimensional electron gases. Nature Phys 1, 31–35 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys009

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