Current-induced switching of magnetic molecules on topological insulator surfaces
arXiv:1612.02711 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.95.125437
Abstract
Electrical currents at the surface or edge of a topological insulator are intrinsically spin-polarized. We show that such surface/edge currents can be used to switch the orientation of a molecular magnet weakly coupled to the surface or edge of a topological insulator. For the edge of a two-dimensional topological insulator as well as for the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator the application of a well-chosen surface/edge current can lead to a complete polarization of the molecule if the molecule's magnetic anisotropy axis is appropriately aligned with the current direction. For a generic orientation of the molecule a nonzero but incomplete polarization is obtained. We calculate the probability distribution of the magnetic states and the switching rates as a function of the applied current.
8+5 pages, 8 figures
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Cited by in corpus (5)
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- Thermodynamics and spin mapping of quantum excitations in a Heisenberg spin heptamer
- Interference effects induced by a precessing easy-plane magnet coupled to a helical edge state
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- Finite-frequency admittance and noise of a helical edge coupled to a magnet