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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 96 » Issue 7
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 076604 (2006) [4 pages]

Proper Definition of Spin Current in Spin-Orbit Coupled Systems

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Junren Shi1,2, Ping Zhang2,3, Di Xiao2, and Qian Niu2
1Institute of Physics and ICQS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, People’s Republic of China
2Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
3Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Beijing 100088, People’s Republic of China

Received 19 April 2005; revised 18 November 2005; published 24 February 2006

The conventional definition of spin current is incomplete and unphysical in describing spin transport in systems with spin-orbit coupling. A proper and measurable spin current is established in this study, which fits well into the standard framework of near-equilibrium transport theory and has the desirable property to vanish in insulators with localized orbitals. Experimental implications of our theory are discussed.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.076604
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.076604
PACS:
72.10.Bg, 72.20.Dp, 73.63.Hs
 
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