Manipulation of spin states via purely electric means forms the research branch "all-electric spintronics".In this paper,we briefly review recent progress relating to the all-electric spintronics,including electric-field control of Rashba spin-orbit coupling,magnetic anisotropy,exchange bias,ferromagnetism,and other forms of magnetoelectric coupling.Special focus is given to surface/interface systems,including semiconductor(oxide) heterostructures,magnetic/nonmagnetic surfaces,semiconductor-metal interfaces,and other nanostructures,which can be good candidates for functional materials for spintronic.
GONG ShiJingDING HangChenZHU WanJiaoDUAN ChunGangZHU ZiQiangCHU JunHao
The monolayer arsenic in the puckered honeycomb structure was recently predicted to be a stable two-dimensional layered semiconductor and therefore named arsenene. Unfortunately, it has an indirect band gap, which limits its practical application. Using first-principles calculations, we show that the band gaps of few-layer arsenic have an indirect-direct transition as the number of arsenic layers(n) increases from n=1 to n=2. As n increases from n=2 to infinity, the stacking of the puckered honeycomb arsenic layers forms the orthorhombic arsenic crystal ??-As, arsenolamprite), which has a similar structure to the black phosphorus and also has a direct band gap. This indirect-direct transition stems from the distinct quantum-confinement effect on the indirect and direct band-edge states with different wavefunction distribution. The strain effect on these electronic states is also studied, showing that the in-plane strains can induce very different shift of the indirect and direct band edges, and thus inducing an indirect-direct band gap transition too. The band gap dependence on strain is non-monotonic, with both positive and negative deformation potentials. Although the gap of arsenene opens between As p-p bands, the spin-orbit interaction decreases the gap by only 0.02 e V, which is much smaller than the decrease in Ga As with an s-p band gap. The calculated band gaps of arsenene and ?-As using the hybrid functional are 1.4 and 0.4 e V respectively, which are comparable to those of phosphorene and black phosphorus.
