Spin Hall and longitudinal conductivity of a conserved spin current in two dimensional heavy-hole gases

2009/09/30 by Arturo Wong, Francisco Mireles · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Asymmetry #Condensed matter physics #Conductivity #Electrical resistivity and conductivity #Electron #Hall effect #Magnetic properties of thin films #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin Hall effect #Spin polarization #cond-mat.mes-hall

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.81.085304

12 pages, 6 figures; typos added; Recommendations from referees added. Title changed

arxiv created 2009/12/12 · openalex publication_date 2010/02/04 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The spin Hall and longitudinal conductivity of a two-dimensional (2D) heavy-hole gas with k-cubic Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction is studied in the ac frequency domain. Using Kubo linear-response theory and a recently proposed definition for the (conserved) spin current operator suitable for spin-3/2 holes, it is shown that the spin conductivity tensor exhibit very distinguishable features from those obtained with the standard definition of the spin current. This is due to a significant contribution of the spin-torque term arisen from the alternative definition of spin current which strongly affects the magnitude and the sign of the dynamic spin current. In the dc (free of disorder) limit, the spin Hall conductivity for only (or dominant) k-cubic Rashba coupling is \ensuremathσ_xy^s,z(0)=\ensuremath-9e/8\ensuremathπ, whereas \ensuremathσ_xy^s,z(0)=\ensuremath-3e/8\ensuremathπ for only (or dominant) k-cubic Dresselhaus coupling. Such anisotropic response is understood in terms of the absence of mapping the k-cubic Rashba\ensuremath↔Dresselhaus Hamiltonians. This asymmetry is also responsible for the nonvanishing dc spin Hall conductivity (\ensuremathσ_xy^s,z(0)=\ensuremath-6e/8\ensuremathπ) when the Rashba and Dresselhaus parameters have the same strength, in contrast with its corresponding case for electrons. These results are of relevance to validate the alternative definition of spin current through measurements in the frequency domain of the spin accumulation and/or spin currents in 2D hole gases.

Citations

• Spin Current and Polarization in Impure Two-Dimensional Electron Systems with Spin-Orbit Coupling
• Observation of the Spin Hall Effect in Semiconductors
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• Rashba spin splitting in two-dimensional electron and hole systems
• Spin-Hall effect: Back to the beginning at a higher level
• Spin Hall effect and Berry phase in two-dimensional electron gas
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• SU(2)non-Abelian holonomy and dissipationless spin current in semiconductors
• Spin-Hall transport of heavy holes in III-V semiconductor quantum wells
• Spintronics: Fundamentals and applications
• Universal Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect
• Proper Definition of Spin Current in Spin-Orbit Coupled Systems
• Dissipationless Quantum Spin Current at Room Temperature
• Spin Hall effect of a conserved current: Conditions for a nonzero spin Hall current
• Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in the Two-Dimensional Hole Gas
• Nonballistic Spin-Field-Effect Transistor

Cited by

• Conserved current of nonconserved quantities