- https://www.cells.es/en/media/events/external-events/what-can-topological-insulators-do-for-spintronics
- What can topological insulators do for spintronics?
- 2015-09-28T12:00:00+02:00
- 2015-09-28T13:00:00+02:00
- Dr. Branislav Nikolic - Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, USA
- What
- events
- When
- Sep 28, 2015 from 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (Europe/Madrid / UTC200)
- Where
- ICN2 Seminar Hall, ICN2 Building, UAB
- Contact Name
- events@icn.cat
- Web
- Visit external website
- Add event to calendar
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iCal
Topological insulators (TIs) are newly discovered materials which possess an energy gap in the bulk, akin to conventional band insulators, while hosting metallic surfaces where electrons behave as massless Dirac fermions analogous to the ones found in graphene. However, unlike graphene where spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is negligible due to the lightness of carbon atoms, in TIs it plays a crucial role by locking the direction of spin and momentum of surface electrons. This feature is considered to be a great resource for spintronic applications where combinations of TIs with ferromagnets (FM) could lead to ultralow-power memory and logic devices.
In this talk, the speaker will discuss possible routes of integration of TIs and FMs into heterostructures exhibiting: (i) spin-to-charge conversion after the magnetization of the FM layer is brought into steady precession by the microwave absorption; (ii) current-driven spin-orbit torques by which TI surface induces magnetization dynamics of the FM layer; and (iii) spin-Seebeck effect on the surface of TI where temperature gradients driven pure spin currents that can be converted into voltage via the inverse spin Hall effect.
