Pure spin current injection of single-layer monochalcogenides

Abstract

We compute the spectrum of pure spin current injection in ferroelectric single-layer SnS, SnSe, GeS, and GeSe. The formalism takes into account the coherent spin dynamics of optically excited conduction states split in energy by spin orbit coupling. The velocity of the electron’s spins is calculated as a function of incoming photon energy and angle of linearly polarized light within a full electronic band structure scheme using density functional theory. We find peak speeds of 260, 220, 180 and 150 Km/s for SnS, SnSe, GeS and GeSe, respectively which are an order of magnitude larger than those found in bulk semiconductors, e.g., GaAs and CdSe. Interestingly, the spin velocity is almost independent of the direction of polarization of light in a range of photon energies. Our results demonstrate that single-layer SnS, SnSe, GeS and GeSe are candidates to produce on demand spin-current in spintronics applications.

Stability of mechanically exfoliated layered monochalcogenides under ambient conditions

“…Layered monochalcogenides (LMs) are among the potential materials for fabricating novel lowdimensional semiconductor devices. They have potential applications in photovoltaic [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] , thermoelectric, and energy storage devices [11][12][13] , transistors [14][15] , photodetectors [16][17][18] , devices utilizing piezoelectricity 11,[19][20] , water splitting [21][22][23] , ferroelectricity 11,24 , optoelectronics [25][26][27][28][29] , memory devices 30 , spintronics 31 , nanotubes and nanowires [32][33][34] .…”

Stability of mechanically exfoliated layered monochalcogenides under ambient conditions

“…Layered monochalcogenides (LMs) are among the potential materials for fabricating novel low-dimensional semiconductor devices. They have potential applications in photovoltaic 1 – 11 , thermoelectric and energy storage devices 12 – 17 , transistors 18 , 19 , photodetectors 20 – 22 , devices utilizing piezoelectricity 12 , 23 , 24 , water splitting 25 – 27 , ferroelectricity 28 – 30 , optoelectronics 31 – 35 , memory devices 36 , spintronics 37 , nanotubes and nanowires 38 – 40 .…”