Disorder effect of resonant spin Hall effect in a tilted magnetic field

We study the disorder effect of resonant spin Hall effect in a two-dimension electron system with Rashba coupling in the presence of a tilted magnetic field. The competition between the Rashba coupling and the Zeeman coupling leads to the energy crossing of the Landau levels, which gives rise to the resonant spin Hall effect. Utilizing the Streda's formula within the self-consistent Born approximation, we find that the impurity scattering broadens the energy levels, and the resonant spin Hall conductance exhibits a double peak around the resonant point, which is recovered in an applied titled magnetic field.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Theory of resonant spin Hall effect

A biref review is presented on resonant spin Hall effect, where a tiny external electric field induces a saturated spin Hall current in a 2-dimensional electron or hole gas in a perpendicular magnetic field. The phenomenon is attributted to the energy level crossing associated with the spin-orbit coupling and the Zeeman splitting. We summarize recent theoretical development of the effect in various systems and discuss possible experiments to observe the effect.Comment: 5 pages with 1 figure

Theory of magnetoelectric photocurrent generated by direct interband transitions in semiconductor quantum well

A linearly polarized light normally incident on a semiconductor quantum well with spin-orbit coupling may generate pure spin current via direct interband optical transition. An electric photocurrent can be extracted from the pure spin current when an in-plane magnetic field is applied, which has been recently observed in the InGaAs/InAlAs quantum well [Dai et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 246601 (2010)]. Here we present a theoretical study of this magnetoelectric photocurrent effect associated with the interband transition. By employing the density matrix formalism, we show that the photoexcited carrier density has an anisotropic distribution in k space, strongly dependent on the orientation of the electron wavevector and the polarization of the light. This anisotropy provides an intuitive picture of the observed dependence of the photocurrent on the magnetic field and the polarization of the light. We also show that the ratio of the pure spin photocurrent to the magnetoelectric photocurrent is approximately equal to the ratio of the kinetic energy to the Zeeman energy, which enables us to estimate the magnitude of the pure spin photocurrent. The photocurrent density calculated with the help of an anisotropic Rashba model and the Kohn-Luttinger model can produce all three terms in the fitting formula for measured current, with comparable order of magnitude, but discrepancies are still present and further investigation is needed.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

Elastic fracture toughness for ductile metal pipes with circumferential surface cracks

Surface cracks have long been recognized as a major cause for potential failures of metal pipes. In fracture analysis, the widely used method is based on linear elastic fracture mechanics. However, for ductile metal pipes, it has been known that the existence of plasticity results in easing of stress concentration at the crack front. This will ultimately increase the total fracture toughness. Therefore, when using linear elastic fracture mechanics to predict fracture failure of ductile metal pipes, the plastic portion of fracture toughness should be excluded. Otherwise, the value of fracture toughness will be overestimated, resulting in an under-estimated probability of failure. This paper intends to derive a model of elastic fracture toughness for steel pipes with a circumferential crack. The derived elastic fracture toughness is a function of crack geometry and material properties of the cracked pipe. The significance of the derived model is that the well-established linear elastic fracture mechanics can be used for ductile materials in predicting the fracture failur

Transverse electric current induced by optically injected spin current in cross-shaped InGaAs/InAlAs system

We examine electric response of a linearly polarized light normally shed on a cross-shaped quasi 2-dimensional InGaAs/InAlAs system with structure inversion asymmetry. The photo-excited conduction electrons carry a pure spin current with in-plane spin polarization due to the Rashba spin-orbit interaction. We use Landauer-B\"{u}ttiker formalism to show that this spin current induces two inward or outward transverse charge currents, which are observable in experiments. This effect may serve as an experimental probe of certain types of spin current.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Localization and Mobility Gap in Topological Anderson Insulator

It has been proposed that disorder may lead to a new type of topological insulator, called topological Anderson insulator (TAI). Here we examine the physical origin of this phenomenon. We calculate the topological invariants and density of states of disordered model in a super-cell of 2-dimensional HgTe/CdTe quantum well. The topologically non-trivial phase is triggered by a band touching as the disorder strength increases. The TAI is protected by a mobility gap, in contrast to the band gap in conventional quantum spin Hall systems. The mobility gap in the TAI consists of a cluster of non-trivial subgaps separated by almost flat and localized bands.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Observation of electric current induced by optically injected spin current

A normally incident light of linear polarization injects a pure spin current in a strip of 2-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit coupling. We report observation of an electric current with a butterfly-like pattern induced by such a light shed on the vicinity of a crossbar shaped InGaAs/InAlAs quantum well. Its light polarization dependence is the same as that of the spin current. We attribute the observed electric current to be converted from the optically injected spin current caused by scatterings near the crossing. Our observation provides a realistic technique to detect spin currents, and opens a new route to study the spin-related science and engineering in semiconductors.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Resonant Spin Hall Conductance in Two-Dimensional Electron Systems with Rashba Interaction in a Perpendicular Magnetic Field

We study transport properties of a two-dimensional electron system with Rashba spin-orbit coupling in a perpendicular magnetic field. The spin orbit coupling competes with Zeeman splitting to introduce additional degeneracies between different Landau levels at certain magnetic fields. This degeneracy, if occuring at the Fermi level, gives rise to a resonant spin Hall conductance, whose height is divergent as 1/T and whose weight is divergent as $-\ln T$ at low temperatures. The Hall conductance is unaffected by the Rashba coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Bis(μ-naphthalene-1,8-dicarboxyl­ato-κ2 O 1:O 8)bis­[aqua­bis­(N,N′-dimethyl­formamide-κO)copper(II)]

In the centrosymmetric dinuclear title complex, [Cu2(C12H6O4)2(C3H7NO)4(H2O)2], the coordination environment of each Cu(II) atom displays a distorted CuO5 square-pyramidal geometry, which is formed by two carboxyl­ate O atoms of two μ-1,8-nap ligands (1,8-nap is naphthalene-1,8-dicarboxyl­ate), two O atoms of two DMF (DMF is N,N′-dimethyl­formamide) and one coordinated water mol­ecule. The Cu—O distances involving the four O atoms in the square plane are in the range 1.9501 (11)–1.9677 (11) Å, with the Cu atom lying nearly in the plane [deviation = 0.0726 (2) Å]. The axial O atom occupies the peak position with a Cu—O distance of 2.885 (12) Å, which is significantly longer than the rest of the Cu—O distances. Each 1,8-nap ligand acts as bridge, linking two CuII atoms into a dinuclear structure. Inter­molecular O—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen-bonding inter­actions consolidate the structure

Resonant spin Hall conductance in quantum Hall systems lacking bulk and structural inversion symmetry

Following a previous work [Shen, Ma, Xie and Zhang, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 256603 (2004)] on the resonant spin Hall effect, we present detailed calculations of the spin Hall conductance in two-dimensional quantum wells in a strong perpendicular magnetic field. The Rashba coupling, generated by spin-orbit interaction in wells lacking bulk inversion symmetry, introduces a degeneracy of Zeeman-split Landau levels at certain magnetic fields. This degeneracy, if occuring at the Fermi energy, will induce a resonance in the spin Hall conductance below a characteristic temperature of order of the Zeeman energy. At very low temperatures, the spin Hall current is highly non-ohmic. The Dresselhaus coupling due to the lack of structure inversion symmetry partially or completely suppresses the spin Hall resonance. The condition for the resonant spin Hall conductance in the presence of both Rashba and Dresselhaus couplings is derived using a perturbation method. In the presence of disorder, we argue that the resonant spin Hall conductance occurs when the two Zeeman split extended states near the Fermi level becomes degenerate due to the Rashba coupling and that the the quantized charge Hall conductance changes by 2e^2/h instead of e^2/h as the magnetic field changes through the resonant field.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. This is a sequel to Physical Review Letters 90, 256603 (2004