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Selected results of department 15

Nano scale thermo-electrical detection of magnetic domain wall propagation

A group of European researchers from the Institute of Physics and the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig, Germany, the Hitachi Cambridge laboratory in Cambridge and the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, in the United Kingdom have developed an unprecedented thermo-electric method to detect the propagation of a magnetic domain wall with nanometer precision.

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Inertial displacement of a domain wall excited by ultra-short circularly polarized laser pulses

Researchers from the Institute of Physics and the Charles University in Prague and the Hitachi Cambridge laboratory in United Kingdom have transformed light polarisation into the position of a magnetic domain wall by moving it light helicity dependent along a magnetic race track bar by ultra-short laser pulses.

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Demonstration of molecular beam epitaxy and a semiconducting band structure for I-Mn-V compounds

Our ab initio theory calculations predict a semiconducting band structure of I-Mn-V compounds. We demonstrate on LiMnAs that high-quality materials with group-I alkali metals in the crystal structure can be grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Optical measurements on the LiMnAs epilayers are consistent with the theoretical electronic structure… The whole text »

Experimental Observation of the Spin-Hall Effect in a Two-Dimensional Spin-Orbit Coupled Semiconductor System

We report the experimental observation of the spin-Hall effect in a 2D hole system with spin-orbit coupling. The 2D hole layer is a part of a p-n junction light-emitting diode with a specially designed coplanar geometry which allows an angle-resolved polarization detection at opposite edges of the 2D hole system. In equilibrium the angular momenta of the spin-orbit split heavy-hole states lie in the plane of the 2D layer. When an electric field is applied across the hole channel, a nonzero out-of-plane component of the angular momentum is detected whose sign depends on the sign of the electric field and is opposite for the two edges. Microscopic quantum transport calculations show only a weak effect of disorder, suggesting that the clean limit spin-Hall conductance description (intrinsic spin-Hall effect) might apply to our system.

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Universal Intrinsic Spin-Hall Effect

We describe a new effect in semiconductor spintronics that leads to dissipationless spin-currents in paramagnetic spin-orbit coupled systems. We argue that in a high mobility two-dimensional electron system with substantial Rashba spin-orbit coupling, a spin-current that flows perpendicular to the charge current is intrinsic. In the usual case where both spin-orbit split bands are occupied, the intrinsic spin-Hall conductivity has a universal value for zero quasiparticle spectral broadening.

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DC-transport properties of ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As semiconductors

We study the dc transport properties of (Ga,Mn)As diluted magnetic semiconductors with Mn concentration varying from 1.5% to 8%. Transport data obtained at low temperatures are discussed theoretically within a model of band-hole quasiparticles with a finite spectral width due to elastic scattering from Mn and compensating defects. The quantitative understanding of dc magneto-transport effects in (Ga,Mn)As is unparalleled in itinerant ferromagnetic systems.

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Anomalous Hall Effect in Ferromagnetic Semiconductors

We present a theory of the anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic (III, Mn)V semiconductors. Our theory relates the anomalous Hall conductance of a homogeneous ferromagnet to the Berry phase acquired by a quasiparticle wave function upon traversing closed paths on the spin-split Fermi surface. The quantitative agreement between our theory and experimental data in both (In, Mn)As and (Ga, Mn)As systems suggests that this disorder independent contribution to the anomalous Hall conductivity dominates in diluted magnetic semiconductors…

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Interlayer coupling in ferromagnetic semiconductor superlattices

We developed a mean-field theory of carrier-induced ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors. Our approach represents an improvement over the standard Ruderman-Kittel-Kesuya-Yosida model allowing spatial inhomogeneity of the system, free-carrier spin polarization, finite temperature, and free-carrier exchange and correlation to be accounted for self-consistently…

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First-order phase transitions in a quantum Hall ferromagnet

We report evidence for first-order phase transitions in quantum Hall states (ν = 2, 4) confined to a wide gallium arsenide quantum well. We observe hysteresis and an anomalous temperature dependence in the longitudinal resistivity, indicative of a transition between two distinct ground states of an Ising quantum Hall ferromagnet.

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