Erratum: Current and Strain-Induced Spin Polarization inInGaN/GaNSuperlattices [Phys. Rev. Lett.98, 136403 (2007)]

Abstract

The lateral current-induced spin polarization in InGaN/GaN superlattices (SLs) without an applied magnetic field is reported. The fact that the sign of the nonequilibrium spin changes as the current reverses and is opposite for the two edges provides a clear signature for the spin Hall effect. In addition, it is discovered that the spin Hall effect can be strongly manipulated by the internal strains. A theoretical work has also been developed to understand the observed strain induced spin polarization. Our result paves an alternative way for the generation of spin polarized current.PACS numbers: 72.25.Dc, 78.20.Hp, 78.55.Cr It has been proposed theoretically that a transverse spin current, the so called spin Hall current, can be generated in strongly spin-orbit coupling systems by external electric field [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. This novel phenomenon offers the exciting possibility of pure electric driven spintronics in semiconductors, which can be more readily integrated with current industry. Recently, the observations of the spin Hall effect have been reported [8,9,10] in GaAs based devices, which has generated an intensive research [11,12,13,14,15,16]. However, up to now, most of the experimental measurements were concentrated on GaAs system. More clear evidences to confirm the spin Hall effect in other semiconductors are still needed [17]. Nitride semiconductors probably represent the most studied material system in semiconductor community for the last decade. InGaN/GaN superlattices have become particularly attractive because of their wide applications in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) [18] and high efficiency laser diodes (LDs) [19]. In this letter, we provide the first experimental observation of currentinduced spin polarization in InGaN/GaN superlattices. In addition, we discover that the spin Hall effect can be strongly manipulated by the internal strains. In order to have a fundamental understanding of the strain-induced spin Hall effect, a theoretical investigation has also been performed. Because strains are commonly present in semiconductor multilayers and superlattices due to lattice mismatch, our result therefore provides a convenient way to control the magnitude of the spin Hall effect, which should be very useful for the future applications. Furthermore, this strain dependence enables to resolve the intensive debate about whether the intrinsic spin Hall effect remains valid beyond the ballistic transport regime.The n-type InGaN/GaN superlattices were grown by a horizontal flow metalorganic chemical vapor deposition on (0001) sapphire substrate. All structures consist of 30 nm buffer layer, followed by a 2 µm epitaxial GaN layer and then 50 periods of InGaN/GaN superlattices. Superlattices are composed of periods of alternating 30Å GaN barriers and 50Å In x Ga 1−x N wells with x ∼ 0.15. The superlattices was doped with Si, and the electron concentration is 2x10 12 cm −2 according to the Hall measurement. For the cross sectional photoluminescence (PL) measurement, the sample was excited by a He-Cd lase...

Current-induced spin polarization at the surface of metallic films: A theorem and anab initiocalculation

“…While in classical spintronics the spin dynamics is mainly controlled by exchange interactions, in orbital spintronics the central role is played by the spin-orbit (SO) interaction, which allows direct manipulation of the spins by electric fields. [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] In recent years both the exchange interaction-based approach and the spin-orbit interaction-based one have been shown to be viable for achieving current-induced switching of the magnetization of a ferromagnetic metal. 26,[35][36][37][38][39] Although spin-orbit interactions are generally much weaker than exchange interactions, they are known to produce a characteristic linear in momentum spin splitting of surface states -the so-called Rashba effect 40 , which is observed in semiconductor as well as metallic interfaces.…”

Ab initio calculation of intrinsic spin Hall conductivity of Pd and Au

“…In semiconductors, there have been experimental reports on the SHE in n-type GaAs [7], p-type GaAs [8] and n-type InGaN/GaN superlattices [9] in recent years. These experimental results have been discussed theoretically, and it is now recognized that the SHE in n-type GaAs is due to the extrinsic mechanisms, i.e., skew scattering and side-jump contributions [10,11], while that in p-type GaAs is mainly caused by the intrinsic mechanism [12,13].…”

Steady-State Spin Densities and Currents

“…Further experiments by Stern et al [23] imaged the spatial distribution of the spin accumulation generated by the spin-Hall effect as well as its behavior in a magnetic field. Chang et al [24] also reported, using photoluminescence, a spin accumulation due to the spin-Hall effect in InGaN/GaN superlattices.…”

“…Following that, spin accumulations resulting from spin currents were measured by several groups. [18,19,20,21,22,23,24] In what is surely a new generation of experiments, Valenzuela and Tinkham [25] made use of the fact that a spin current gives rise to a transverse charge current. Relying on a nonlocal technique, their group successfully detected a charge current flowing as a result of a spin current in Al metal.…”