Spin injection and inverse Edelstein effect in the surface states of topological Kondo insulator SmB6

Qi Song; Jian Mi; Dan Zhao; Tang Su; Wei Yuan; Wenyu Xing; Yangyang Chen; Tianyu Wang; Tao Wu; Xian Hui Chen; X C Xie; Chi Zhang; Jing Shi; Wei Han

doi:10.1038/ncomms13485

Spin injection and inverse Edelstein effect in the surface states of topological Kondo insulator SmB₆

Nat Commun. 2016 Nov 11:7:13485. doi: 10.1038/ncomms13485.

Authors

Qi Song^{1

2}, Jian Mi^{1

2}, Dan Zhao^{3

4}, Tang Su^{1

2}, Wei Yuan^{1

2}, Wenyu Xing^{1

2}, Yangyang Chen^{1

2}, Tianyu Wang^{1

2}, Tao Wu^{3

4

5}, Xian Hui Chen^{3

4

5

6}, X C Xie^{1

2}, Chi Zhang^{1

2}, Jing Shi⁷, Wei Han^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing 100871, China.
³ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at Microscale, Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Strongly-coupled Quantum Matter Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230026, China.
⁵ Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
⁶ High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031, China.
⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA.

Abstract

There has been considerable interest in exploiting the spin degrees of freedom of electrons for potential information storage and computing technologies. Topological insulators (TIs), a class of quantum materials, have special gapless edge/surface states, where the spin polarization of the Dirac fermions is locked to the momentum direction. This spin-momentum locking property gives rise to very interesting spin-dependent physical phenomena such as the Edelstein and inverse Edelstein effects. However, the spin injection in pure surface states of TI is very challenging because of the coexistence of the highly conducting bulk states. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the spin injection and observe the inverse Edelstein effect in the surface states of a topological Kondo insulator, SmB₆. At low temperatures when only surface carriers are present, a clear spin signal is observed. Furthermore, the magnetic field angle dependence of the spin signal is consistent with spin-momentum locking property of surface states of SmB₆.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't