Hirsch (1999) proposed a mechanism and geometry for the observation of the spin-Hall effect. In this work, we present a novel realization of the Hirsch geometry in a platinum (Pt) nanostructure, which is an increasingly important material for spintronics applications. Measurements were made in a non-local geometry to avoid spurious effects. The measurements show the large spin Hall conductivity of Pt. The results are compared with gold (Au) and aluminum (Al). Possible theoretical explanations of our observations are briefly mentioned.
Nanostructures based on platinum, such as small clusters or STM-tips, often exhibit an atomistic structure that relies upon one or very few strongly under-coordinated platinum atoms. Here, we analyze a paradigmatic example, an apex atom on a pyramidal platinum cluster employing the density functional theory. We show that such a pristine platinum tip exhibits a spin polarization of the apex atom with a remarkable robustness. Due to a depletion of the projected density of states at the apex position, the apex-magnetization is efficiently locked to about 0.6$μ_\text{B}$.
We investigated the magnetotransport properties of mesoscopic platinum nanostructures (wires and rings) with sub-100 nm lateral dimensions at very low temperatures. Despite the strong spin-orbit interaction in platinum, oscillations of the conductance as a function of the external magnetic field due to quantum interference effects was found to appear. The oscillation was decomposed into Aharonov-Bohm periodic oscillations and aperiodic fluctuations of the conductance due to a magnetic flux piercing the loop of the ring and the metal wires forming the nanostructures, respectively. We also inves…
The spatial separation of electron spins followed by the control of their individual spin dynamics has recently emerged as an essential ingredient in many proposals for spin-based technologies because it would enable both of the two spin species to be simultaneously utilized, distinct from most of the current spintronic studies and technologies wherein only one spin species could be handled at a time. Here we demonstrate that the spatial spin splitting of a coherent beam of electrons can be achieved and controlled using the interplay between an external magnetic field and Rashba spin-orbit int…
Two conducting nanostructures on a conducting base-plate, and with a common applied electrostatic field, interact because their electrons are a common electron-thermodynamic system. Except at small separations, the interaction reduces the apex field enhancement factor (FEF) of each nanostructure, by means of "charge blunting". A parameter of interest is the fractional reduction (-d) of the apex FEF, as compared with the apex FEF for the same emitter when standing alone on the base-plate. For systems of two or a few identical post-like emitters, or regular arrays of such emitters, details have …
Spin currents offer a way to control static and dynamic magnetic properties, and therefore they are crucial for next-generation MRAM devices or spin-torque oscillators. Manipulating the dynamics is especially interesting within the context of photo-magnonics. In typical $3d$ transition metal ferromagnets like CoFeB, the lifetime of light-induced magnetization dynamics is restricted to about 1 ns, which e.g. strongly limits the opportunities to exploit the wave nature in a magnonic crystal filtering device. Here, we investigate the potential of spin-currents to increase the spin wave lifetime i…
We derive the effective dimensionally reduced Schödinger equation for electrons in strain-driven curved nanostructures by adiabatic separation of fast and slow quantum degrees of freedom. The emergent strain-induced geometric potential strongly renormalizes the purely quantum curvature-induced potential and enhances the effects of curvature by several orders of magnitude. Applying this analysis to nanocorrugated films shows that this curvature-induced potential leads to strongly enhanced electron localization and the opening of substantial band gaps.
We derive the effective dimensionally reduced Schrödinger equation with spin-orbit interaction in low-dimensional electronic strain driven nanostructures. A method of adiabatic separation among fast normal quantum degrees of freedom and slow tangential quantum degrees of freedom is used to show the emergence of a strain-induced Rashba-like spin-orbit interaction (SOI). By applying this analysis to one-dimensional curved quantum wires we demonstrate that the curvature-induced Rashba SOI leads to enhanced spin-orbit effects.
We study the transport of thermally excited non-equilibrium magnons through the ferrimagnetic insulator YIG using two electrically isolated Pt strips as injector and detector. The diffusing magnons induce a non- local inverse spin Hall voltage in the detector corresponding to the so-called non-local spin Seebeck effect (SSE). We measure the non-local SSE as a function of temperature and strip separation. In experiments at room temperature we observe a sign change of the non-local SSE voltage at a characteristic strip separation d0, in agreement with previous investigations. At lower temperatur…
A proposal of a spin separator based on the spin Zeeman effect in Y-shaped nanostructure with a quantum point contact is presented. Our calculations show that the appropriate tuning of the quantum point contact potential and the external magnetic field leads to the spin separation of the current: electrons with opposite spins flow through the different output branches. We demonstrate that this effect is robust against the scattering on impurities. The proposed device can also operate as a spin detector, in which -- depending on the electron spin -- the current flows through one of the output b…
We report on the formation of lobe-lobe (bi-lobed) Au-Ge nanostructures under ultra high vacuum (UHV) conditions (\approx 3\times 10^{-10} mbar) on clean Si(100) surfaces. For this study, \approx 2.0 nm thick Au samples were grown on the substrate surface by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Thermal annealing was carried out inside the UHV chamber at temperature \apprx 500°C and following this, nearly square shaped Au_{x}Si_{1-x} nano structures of average length \approx 48 nm were formed. A \approx 2 nm Ge film was further deposited on the above surface while the substrate was kept at a temperatu…
We study electron-phonon interaction induced decoherence between two-electron singlet and triplet states in a semiconductor double quantum dot using a spin-boson model. We investigate the onset and time evolution of this dephasing, and study its dependence on quantum dot parameters such as dot size and double dot separations, as well as the host materials (GaAs and Si). We find that electron-phonon interaction causes an initial Gaussian decay of the off-diagonal density matrix element in the singlet-triplet Hilbert space, and a long-time exponential decay originating from phonon relaxation.
Recent progress in physics on spin dependent transport in magnetic nanostructures is reviewed. Special attention is paid on the spin accumulation and spin current caused by spin injection into non-magnetic metals and semiconductors and superconductors. A variety of phenomena induced in nano-superconductor/ferromagnet devices are proposed, examining the spin-charge separation in superconductors.
Charge fluctuations in nano-circuits with capacitor components are shown to give rise to a novel type of long-ranged interaction, which co-exist with the regular Casimir/van der Waals force. The developed theory distinguishes between thermal and quantum mechanical effects, and it is applied to capacitors involving graphene nanostructures. The charge fluctuations mechanism is captured via the capacitance of the system with geometrical and quantum mechanical components. The dependence on the distance separation, temperature, size, and response properties of the system shows that this type of for…
In semiconductor nanostructures nonradiative Auger recombination is enhanced by the presence of boundaries which relax the momentum conservation and thereby removes the threshold reduction for these processes. We propose a method to strongly reduce the Auger recombination rate by injecting spin-polarized carriers. Our method is illustrated on the example of a quantum well in which the spin-orbit coupling of conduction band is negligible as compared to valence band and thus holes can be considered as spin-unpolarized. The suppression factor of the Auger recombination is determined by the two-di…
We have characterized a film of Ge_0.9Mn_0.1 forming self-organized nanocolumns perpendicular to the Ge substrate with high resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy combined with electron energy loss spectroscopy, and bulk magnetization and positive muon spin rotation and relaxation (muSR) measurements. The Mn-rich nanocolumns form a triangular lattice with no detectable Mn atoms in the matrix. They consist of cores surrounded by shells. The combined analysis of bulk magnetization and muSR data enables us to characterize the electronic and magnetic properties of both the cores and …
We describe electrical detection of spin pumping in metallic nanostructures. In the spin pumping effect, a precessing ferromagnet attached to a normal-metal acts as a pump of spin-polarized current, giving rise to a spin accumulation. The resulting spin accumulation induces a backflow of spin current into the ferromagnet and generates a dc voltage due to the spin dependent conductivities of the ferromagnet. The magnitude of such voltage is proportional to the spin-relaxation properties of the normal-metal. By using platinum as a contact material we observe, in agreement with theory, that the v…
We theoretically investigate the effect of inhomogeneous light beams with (twisted light) and without (plane-wave light) orbital angular momentum on semiconductor-based nanostructures, when the symmetry axes of the beam and the nanostructure are displaced parallel to each other. Exact analytical results are obtained by expanding the off-centered light field in terms of the appropriate light modes centered around the nanostructure. We demonstrate how electronic transitions involving the transfer of different amounts of orbital angular momentum are switched on and off as a function of the separa…
The quantitative composition of metal alloy nanowires on InSb(001) semiconductor surface and gold nanostructures on germanium surface is determined by blind source separation (BSS) machine learning (ML) method using non negative matrix factorization (NMF) from energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) spectrum image maps measured in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The BSS method blindly decomposes the collected EDX spectrum image into three source components, which correspond directly to the X-ray signals coming from the supported metal nanostructures, bulk semiconductor signal and carb…
We propose a new scheme of spin filtering employing ballistic nanostructures in two dimensional electron gases (2DEGs). The proposal is essentially based on the spin-orbit (SO) interaction arising from the lateral confining electric field. This sets the basic difference with other works employing ballistic crosses and T junctions with the conventional SO term arising from 2DEG confinement. We discuss the consequences of this different approach on magnetotransport properties of the device, showing that the filter can in principle be used not only to generate a spin polarized current but also to…
The investigation of interactions between magnetic nanotubes is complex and often involves substantial simplifications. In this letter an analytical expression for the magnetostatic interaction, taking into account the geometry of the tubes, has been obtained. This expression allows for the definition of a critical vertical separation for relative magnetization between nanotubes and can be used for tailoring barcode-type nanostructures with prospective applications such as biological separation and transport.
The formation of extended electron states in one-dimensional nanostructures is of key importance for the function of molecular electronics devices. Here we study the effects of strong electron-phonon interaction on the formation of extended electronic states in intentionally created Cl vacancy pairs and chains in a NaCl bilayer on Cu(111). The interaction between the vacancies was tailored by fabricating vacancy pairs and chains of different orientation and separation with atomic precision using vertical manipulation. Small separation of divacancies led to the formation of symmetric and antisy…
We report on the coherent control and transport of indirect exciton (IX) spins in GaAs double quantum well (DQW) nanostructures. The spin dynamics was investigated by optically generating spins using a focused, circularly polarized light spot and by probing their spatial distribution using spatially and polarization resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. Optically injected exciton spins precess while diffusing over distances exceeding 20 μm from the excitation spot with a spatial precession frequency that depends on the spin transport direction as well as on the bias applied across the DQW s…
Phase-formation of surface alloying by spinodal decomposition has been studied for the first time at an electrified interface. For this aim Zn was electrodeposited on Au(111) from the ionic liquid AlCl3-MBIC (58:42) containing 1 mM Zn(II) at different potentials in the underpotential range corresponding to submonolayer up to monolayer coverage. Structure evolution was observed by in situ electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) at different times after starting the deposition via potential jumps and at temperatures of 298 K and 323 K. Spinodal or labyrinth two-dimensional structures…
We compare non-local magnetoresistance measurements in multi-terminal Ni nanostructures with corresponding local experiments. In both configurations, the measured voltages show the characteristic features of anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). However, the magnitude of the non-local AMR signal is up to one order of magnitude larger than its local counterpart. Moreover, the non-local AMR increases with increasing degree of non-locality, i.e., with the separation between the region of the main current flow and the voltage measurement region. All experimental observations can be consistently mod…
Raman signals from molecules adsorbed on a noble metal surface are enhanced by many orders of magnitude due to the plasmon resonances of the substrate. Additionally, the enhanced spectra are modified compared to the spectra of neat molecules: many vibrational frequencies are shifted and relative intensities undergo significant changes upon attachment to the metal. With the goal of devising an effective scheme for separating the electromagnetic and chemical effects, we explore the origin of the Raman spectra modification of benzenethiol adsorbed on nanostructured gold surfaces. The spectral mod…
