The influence of the spin-orbit coupling on the magnetic structure of deposited transition metal nanostructure systems has been studied by fully relativistic electronic structure calculations. The interplay of exchange coupling and magnetic anisotropy was monitored by studying the corresponding magnetic torque calculated within ab-initio and model approaches. It is found that a spin-orbit induced Dzyaloshinski-Moriya interaction can stabilise a non-collinear spin structure even if there is a pronounced isotropic ferromagnetic exchange interaction between the magnetic atoms.
Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers are newly discovered semiconductors for a wide range of applications in electronics and optoelectronics. Most studies have focused on binary monolayers that share common properties: direct optical ban
dgap, spin-orbit (SO) splittings of hundreds of meV, light-matter interaction dominated by robust excitons and coupled spin-valley states of electrons. Studies on alloy-based monolayers are more recent, yet they may not only extend the possibilities for TMDC applications through specific engineering but also help understanding the differences between each binary material. Here, we synthesized highly crystalline Mo$_{(1-x)}$W$_{x}$Se$_2$ to show engineering of the direct optical bandgap and the SO coupling in ternary alloy monolayers. We investigate the impact of the tuning of the SO spin splitting on the optical and polarization properties. We show a non-linear increase of the optically generated valley polarization as a function of tungsten concentration, where 40% tungsten incorporation is sufficient to achieve valley polarization as high as in binary WSe2. We also probe the impact of the tuning of the conduction band SO spin splitting on the bright versus dark state population i.e. PL emission intensity. We show that the MoSe2 PL intensity decreases as a function of temperature by an order of magnitude, whereas for WSe2 we measure surprisingly an order of magnitude increase over the same temperature range (T=4-300K). The ternary material shows a trend between these two extreme behaviors. These results show the strong potential of SO engineering in ternary TMDC alloys for optoelectronics and applications based on electron spin- and valley-control.
The triangular spin lattice of NiBr$_{2}$ is a canonical example of a frustrated helimagnet that shows a temperature-driven phase transition from a collinear commensurate antiferromagnetic structure to an incommensurate spin helix on cooling. Employi
ng neutron diffraction, bulk magnetization, and magnetic susceptibility measurements, we have studied the fhspace*{.5pt}ield-induced magnetic states of the NiBr$_{2}$ single crystal. Experimental fhspace*{.5pt}indings enable us to recapitalize the driving forces of the spin spiral ordering in the triangular spin-lattice systems, in general. Neutron diffraction data confhspace*{.5pt}irms, at low temperature below T$_{{rm m}}$ = 22.8(1) K, the presence of diffraction satellites characteristic of an incommensurate magnetic state, which are symmetrically arranged around main magnetic reflections that evolve just below T$_{{rm N}}$ = 44.0(1) K. Interestingly, a fhspace*{.5pt}ield-induced transition from the incommensurate to commensurate spin phase has been demonstrated that enforces spin helix to restore the high temperature compensated antiferromagnetic structure. This spin reorientation can be described as a spin-flop transition in the (hbox{$a$--$b$}) basal plane of a triangular spin lattice system. These fhspace*{.5pt}indings offer a new pathway to control the spin helix in incommensurate phases that are currently considered having high technical implications in the next-generation data storage devices.
We report a systematic study on strong enhancement of spin-orbit interaction (SOI) in graphene driven by transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Low temperature magnetotoransport measurements of graphene proximitized to different TMDs (monolayer and
bulk WSe$_2$, WS$_2$ and monolayer MoS$_2$) all exhibit weak antilocalization peaks, a signature of strong SOI induced in graphene. The amplitudes of the induced SOI are different for different materials and thickness, and we find that monolayer WSe$_2$ and WS$_2$ can induce much stronger SOI than bulk ones and also monolayer MoS$_2$. The estimated spin-orbit (SO) scattering strength for the former reaches $sim$ 10 meV whereas for the latter it is around 1 meV or less. We also discuss the symmetry and type of the induced SOI in detail, especially focusing on the identification of intrinsic and valley-Zeeman (VZ) SOI via the dominant spin relaxation mechanism. Our findings offer insight on the possible realization of the quantum spin Hall (QSH) state in graphene.
In transition-metal dichalcogenides, electrons in the K-valleys can experience both Ising and Rashba spin-orbit couplings. In this work, we show that the coexistence of Ising and Rashba spin-orbit couplings leads to a special type of valley Hall effe
ct, which we call spin-orbit coupling induced valley Hall effect. Importantly, near the conduction band edge, the valley-dependent Berry curvatures generated by spin-orbit couplings are highly tunable by external gates and dominate over the intrinsic Berry curvatures originating from orbital degrees of freedom under accessible experimental conditions. We show that the spin-orbit coupling induced valley Hall effect is manifested in the gate dependence of the valley Hall conductivity, which can be detected by Kerr effect experiments.
We study the electronic structure of heterostructures formed by a graphene nanoribbon (GNR) and a transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) monolayer using first-principles. We consider both semiconducting TMDs and metallic TMDs, and different stacking
configurations. We find that when the TMD is semiconducting the effects on the band structure of the GNRs are small. In particular the spin-splitting induced by proximity on the GNRs bands is only of the order of few meV irrespective of the stacking configuration. When the TMD is metallic, such as NbSe2, we find that the spin-splitting induced in the GNRs can be very large and strongly dependent on the stacking configuration. For optimal stacking configurations the proximity-induced spin-splitting is of the order of 20 meV for armchair graphene nanoribbons, and as high as 40 meV for zigzag graphene nanoribbons. This results are encouraging for the prospects of using GNR-TMD heterostructures to realize quasi one-dimensional topological superconducting states supporting Majorana modes.