2004/06/30 by Shuichi Murakami, Naoto Nagaosa, Shou-Cheng Zhang · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Magnetic properties of thin films #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.93.156804
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 156804 (2004) · 4 pages, 2 figures, modified Introduction, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett
arxiv created 2004/08/20 · openalex publication_date 2004/10/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Recent theories predict dissipationless spin current induced by an electric field in doped semiconductors. Nevertheless, the charge current is still dissipative in these systems. In this work, we theoretically predict the dissipationless spin-Hall effect, without any accompanying charge current, in some classes of band insulators, including zero-gap semiconductors such as HgTe and narrow-gap semiconductors such as PbTe. This effect is similar to the quantum-Hall effect in that all the states below the gap contribute and there occurs no dissipation. However, the spin-Hall conductance is not quantized even in two dimensions. This is the first example of a nontrivial topological structure in a band insulator without any magnetic field.