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Evidence for the ballistic intrinsic spin Hall effect in HgTe nanostructures

Nature Physics volume 6, pages 448–454 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

In the spin Hall effect, a current passed through a spin–orbit coupled electron gas induces a spin accumulation of inverse sign on either side of the sample. A number of possible mechanisms have been described, extrinsic as well as intrinsic ones, and they may occur in the ballistic as well as the diffusive transport regime. A central problem for experimentalists in studying the effect is the very small signals that result from the spin accumulation. Electrical measurements on metals have yielded reliable signatures of the spin Hall effect, but in semiconductors the spin accumulation could only be detected by optical techniques. Here we report experimental evidence for electrical manipulation and detection of the ballistic intrinsic spin Hall effect (ISHE) in semiconductors. We perform a non-local electrical measurement in nanoscale H-shaped structures built on high-mobility HgTe/(Hg, Cd)Te quantum wells. When the samples are tuned into the p-regime, we observe a large non-local resistance signal due to the ISHE, several orders of magnitude larger than in metals. In the n-regime, where the spin–orbit splitting is reduced, the signal is at least one order of magnitude smaller and vanishes for narrower quantum wells. We verify our experimental observations by quantum transport calculations.

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Figure 1: H-structure samples.
Figure 2: Local resistance data and carrier density of samples Q2197 and Q2198.
Figure 3: Non-local resistance data for samples Q2197 and Q2198.
Figure 4: Experiments on the non-inverted control sample Q2398.
Figure 5: Band structure calculation for sample Q2198.
Figure 6: Theoretical resistance signal for samples Q2197, Q2198 and Q2398.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Schneider and N. Eikenberg for assistance in the experiments, and C. Gould, S-C. Zhang and X-L. Qi for stimulating discussions. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the German–Israeli Foundation (I-881-138.7/2005), DFG under grants AS 327/2-1 and HA5893/1-1, ONR under grant ONR-N000140610122, NSF under grant DMR-0547875, and SWAN-NRI. We thank the Leibniz Rechenzentrum Münich for providing computer resources. J.S. is a Cottrell Scholar of the Research Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physikalisches Institut (EP3), Universität Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

    C. Brüne, A. Roth, E. G. Novik, M. König, H. Buhmann & L. W. Molenkamp

  2. Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universität Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

    E. M. Hankiewicz & W. Hanke

  3. Department of Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-4242, USA

    J. Sinova

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  1. C. Brüne
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  2. A. Roth
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  3. E. G. Novik
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  4. M. König
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  5. H. Buhmann
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  6. E. M. Hankiewicz
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  9. L. W. Molenkamp
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Contributions

Device fabrication: C.B., A.R., M.K.; experiments and data analysis: C.B., A.R., M.K., H.B., L.W.M.; theory: E.G.N., E.M.H., W.H., J.S.; writing: C.B., H.B., E.M.H., J.S., L.W.M.; project planning: H.B., L.W.M.

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Correspondence to H. Buhmann.

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Brüne, C., Roth, A., Novik, E. et al. Evidence for the ballistic intrinsic spin Hall effect in HgTe nanostructures. Nature Phys 6, 448–454 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1655

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