Bulk rectification effect in a polar semiconductor
Bulk rectification effect in a polar semiconductor
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/nphys4056
复制
发表时间：
2017-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
19.6
通讯作者：
Iwasa, Y.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ideue, T.;Hamamoto, K.;Iwasa, Y.
非中心对称导体是一种有趣的材料平台，具有丰富的自旋电子功能(1，2)和奇异的超导性质(3，4)，通常产生于具有Rashba型自旋-轨道相互作用的极性系统(5)。极性导体还应该表现出固有的非互易性传输(6-8)，其中向右和向左的电流彼此不同。但在块状材料中很难实现这样的校正，因为与平移不对称的p-n结不同，块状材料在平移上是对称的，这使得这种现象非常重要。本文报道了三维Rashba型极性半导体BiTeBr体整流效应。基于考虑巨拉什巴自旋-轨道耦合的Boltzmann方程的理论计算，对实验观察到的非互易电信号进行了定量解释。这一结果提供了对极性导体本征整流效应的微观理解，也为估计各种非中心对称系统的自旋轨道参数提供了一种简单的电学手段。
Noncentrosymmetric conductors are an interesting material platform, with rich spintronic functionalities(1,2) and exotic superconducting properties(3,4) typically produced in polar systems with Rashba-type spin-orbit interactions(5). Polar conductors should also exhibit inherent nonreciprocal transport(6-8), in which the rightward and leftward currents differ from each other. But such a rectification is diffcult to achieve in bulk materials because, unlike the translationally asymmetric p-n junctions, bulk materials are translationally symmetric, making this phenomenon highly nontrivial. Here we report a bulk rectification effect in a three-dimensional Rashba-type polar semiconductor BiTeBr. Experimentally observed nonreciprocal electric signals are quantitatively explained by theoretical calculations based on the Boltzmann equation considering the giant Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The present result offers a microscopic understanding of the bulk rectification effect intrinsic to polar conductors as well as a simple electrical means to estimate the spin-orbit parameter in a variety of noncentrosymmetric systems.