Abstract
The spin–orbit interaction plays a crucial role in diverse fields of condensed matter, including the investigation of Majorana fermions, topological insulators, quantum information and spintronics. In III–V zinc-blende semiconductor heterostructures, two types of spin–orbit interaction—Rashba and Dresselhaus—act on the electron spin as effective magnetic fields with different directions. They are characterized by coefficients α and β, respectively. When α is equal to β, the so-called persistent spin helix symmetry is realized. In this condition, invariance with respect to spin rotations is achieved even in the presence of the spin–orbit interaction, implying strongly enhanced spin lifetimes for spatially periodic spin modes. Existing methods to evaluate α/β require fitting analyses that often include ambiguity in the parameters used. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a simple and fitting parameter-free technique to determine α/β and to deduce the absolute values of α and β. The method is based on the detection of the effective magnetic field direction and the strength induced by the two spin–orbit interactions. Moreover, we observe the persistent spin helix symmetry by gate tuning.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge support from the Strategic Japanese–German Joint Research Program. K.R. thanks the DFG for support within Research Unit FOR 1483. T.D. acknowledges support by the DFG within research project SFB 689. This work was financially supported by Grants-in-Aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS; no. 22226001).
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A.S., S.N. and Y.K. performed device fabrication and measurements. T.B., T.D. and K.R. performed numerical calculations. A.S. and M.K. wrote the main part of the manuscript. T.D. and K.R. wrote the theoretical part. All authors discussed the results and worked on the manuscript at all stages. M.K., K.R. and J.N. planned the project. J.N. directed the research.
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Sasaki, A., Nonaka, S., Kunihashi, Y. et al. Direct determination of spin–orbit interaction coefficients and realization of the persistent spin helix symmetry. Nature Nanotech 9, 703–709 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.128
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.128
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