Spin Physics In Semiconductors

This book offers an extensive introduction to the extremely rich and intriguing field of spin-related phenomena in semiconductors. In this second edition, all chapters have been updated to include the latest experimental and theoretical research. Furthermore, it covers the entire field: bulk semiconductors, two-dimensional semiconductor structures, quantum dots, optical and electric effects, spin-related effects, electron-nuclei spin interactions, Spin Hall effect, spin torques, etc. Thanks to its self-contained style, the book is ideally suited for graduate students and researchers new to the field.

Semiconductor Spintronics, as an emerging research discipline and an important advanced field in physics, has developed quickly and obtained fruitful results in recent decades. This volume is the first monograph summarizing the physical foundation and the experimental results obtained in this field. With the culmination of the authors'' extensive working experiences, this book presents the developing history of semiconductor spintronics, its basic concepts and theories, experimental results, and the prospected future development. This unique book intends to provide a systematic and modern foundation for semiconductor spintronics aimed at researchers, professors, post-doctorates, and graduate students, and to help them master the overall knowledge of spintronics.a

This revised and expanded edition of the first comprehensive introduction to the rapidly-evolving field of spintronics covers ferromagnetism in nano-electrodes, spin injection, spin manipulation, and the practical use of these effects in next-generation electronics. Moreover, the book now also includes spin-based optics, topological materials and insulators, and the quantum spin Hall effect.

In recent years, the physics community has experienced a revival of interest in spin effects in solid state systems. On one hand, the solid state systems, particularly, semiconductors and semiconductor nanosystems, allow us to perform benchtop studies of quantum and relativistic phenomena. On the other hand, this interest is supported by the prospects of realizing spin-based electronics, where the electron or nuclear spins may play a role of quantum or classical information carriers. This book looks in detail at the physics of interacting systems of electron and nuclear spins in semiconductors, with particular emphasis on low-dimensional structures. These two spin systems naturally appear in practically all widespread semiconductor compounds. The hyperfine interaction of the charge carriers and nuclear spins is particularly prominent in nanosystems due to the localization of the charge carriers, and gives rise to spin exchange between these two systems and a whole range of beautiful and complex physics of manybody and nonlinear systems. As a result, understanding of the intertwined spin systems of electrons and nuclei is crucial for in-depth studying and controlling the spin phenomena in semiconductors. The book addresses a number of the most prominent effects taking place in semiconductor nanosystems including hyperfine interaction, nuclear magnetic resonance, dynamical nuclear polarization, spin-Faraday and spin-Kerr effects, processes of electron spin decoherence and relaxation, effects of electron spin precession mode-locking and frequency focussing, as well as fluctuations of electron and nuclear spins.

The spin degree of freedom is an intrinsically quantum-mechanical phenomenon, leading to both intriguing applications and unsolved fundamental issues (such as "where does the proton spin come from"). The present volume investigates central aspects of modern spin physics in the form of extensive lectures on semiconductor spintronics, the spin-pairing mechanism in high-temperature semiconductors, spin in quantum field theory and the nucleon spin.

The past few decades of research and development in solid-state semicon ductor physics and electronics have witnessed a rapid growth in the drive to exploit quantum mechanics in the design and function of semiconductor devices. This has been fueled for instance by the remarkable advances in our ability to fabricate nanostructures such as quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots. Despite this contemporary focus on semiconductor "quantum devices," a principal quantum mechanical aspect of the electron - its spin has it accounts for an added quan largely been ignored (except in as much as tum mechanical degeneracy). In recent years, however, a new paradigm of electronics based on the spin degree of freedom of the electron has begun to emerge. This field of semiconductor "spintronics" (spin transport electron ics or spin-based electronics) places electron spin rather than charge at the very center of interest. The underlying basis for this new electronics is the intimate connection between the charge and spin degrees of freedom of the electron via the Pauli principle. A crucial implication of this relationship is that spin effects can often be accessed through the orbital properties of the electron in the solid state. Examples for this are optical measurements of the spin state based on the Faraday effect and spin-dependent transport measure ments such as giant magneto-resistance (GMR). In this manner, information can be encoded in not only the electron's charge but also in its spin state, i. e.

This book focuses on the main aspects of electron and nuclear spin dynamics in semiconductor nanostructures. It summarizes main results of theoretical and experimental studies of interactions in spin systems, effects of ultrafast spin manipulation by light, phenomena of spin losses, and the physics of the omnipresent spin noise.

In a new branch of physics and technology, called spin-electronics or spintronics, the flow of electrical charge (usual current) as well as the flow of electron spin, the so-called "spin current", are manipulated and controlled together. This book is intended to provide an introduction and guide to the new physics and application of spin current.