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Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 126603 (2004) [4 pages]

Universal Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect

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Jairo Sinova1,2, Dimitrie Culcer2, Q. Niu2, N. A. Sinitsyn1, T. Jungwirth2,3, and A. H. MacDonald2
1Department of Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-4242, USA
2Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-1081, USA
3Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, 162 53 Praha 6, Czech Republic

Received 27 July 2003; published 25 March 2004

We describe a new effect in semiconductor spintronics that leads to dissipationless spin currents in paramagnetic spin-orbit coupled systems. We argue that in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system with substantial Rashba spin-orbit coupling, a spin current that flows perpendicular to the charge current is intrinsic. In the usual case where both spin-orbit split bands are occupied, the intrinsic spin-Hall conductivity has a universal value for zero quasiparticle spectral broadening.

© 2004 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.126603
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.126603
PACS:
72.10.–d, 72.15.Gd, 73.50.Jt
 
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