拓扑绝缘体是最近几年才被人们发现的一种新的量子物质态，对其的研究现已迅速成为当今凝聚态物理研究的热点之一。虽然拓扑绝缘体研究在近年取得了飞快的进展，不断加深人们对拓扑绝缘体独特物理性质的认识，但拓扑绝缘体和自旋电子学的交叉研究目前还几乎是一片空白，尚处于起步阶段。为此，申请人将深入开展对拓扑绝缘体Bi2Se3或Bi2Te3自旋输运性质的研究，其将包括以下三个方面的内容：1）自旋电子在拓扑绝缘体上的注入、输运和探测； 2) 拓扑绝缘体表面电流激发产生的电子自旋极化现象；3）拓扑绝缘体上的自旋霍尔效应及其逆过程的研究。此项研究的顺利开展不仅会深刻揭示拓扑绝缘体独特的表面能态结构给电子自旋输运带来新奇的物理现象，而且还会为未来拓扑绝缘体在自旋电子学上的应用打下基础。

As a new quantum state of matter discovered recently, topological insulators (TIs) have attracted significant attention in the field of condensed matter physics.Much progress has been achieved in the study of TIs during the past few years, which greatly deepens our understanding of the exotic physics of TIs. But the interdisciplinary study of TI， especially within the context of spintronics, is still at its initial stage and many novel spin-related phenomena are still waiting to be revealed.This project aims to investigate the spin transport properties of TIs, which mainly consists of the following three parts: 1)Spin injection, transport and detection in TIs; 2)Current-induced surface spin polarization in TIs; 3)Spin Hall effect and inverse spin Hall effect in TIs.The successful fulfillment of this project will not only reveal exciting and novel spin transport phenomena closely associated with the unique spin-helical Dirac cones of TIs , but also pave the way for the future application of TIs in spintronics.