Symmetry-assisted protection and compensation of hidden spin polarization in centrosymmetric systems

Abstract

It is recently noted that in certain centrosymmetric compounds, spin-orbit interaction couples each local sector that lacks inversion symmetry and thus leads to visible spin polarization effects in the real space, dubbed as 'hidden spin polarization (HSP)'. However, observable spin polarization of a given local sector suffers interference by its inversion partner, impeding material realization and potential applications of HSP. Starting from a single-orbital tight-binding model, we propose a nontrivial way to protect strong sector-projected spin texture through minimizing the interaction between inversion partners by nonsymmorphic symmetry. The HSP effect is generally compensated by inversion partners near the Γ point but immune from interaction around the boundary of the Brillouin zone. We further summarize 17 layer groups that support such symmetry-assisted HSP and identify by first-principle calculations hundreds of quasi-2D materials from the existing databases, among which a group of rare-earth compounds LnOI (Ln = Pr, Nd, Ho, Tm and Lu) serves as great candidates showing strong Rashba- and Dresselhaus-type HSP. Our finding also provides an ideal platform to control HSP for emergent physical effects, such as opening a hybridization gap by tensile strain to realize the time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity.

arXiv comment16 pages, 1 table, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Role of hidden spin polarization in non-reciprocal transport of antiferromagnets
• Topological Superconductivity in an s-wave Superconductor and Its Implication to Iron-based Superconductors
• Observation of spin-momentum-layer locking in centrosymmetric BiOI
• Hidden Physical Effects in Non-centrosymmetric Crystals
• Large band splitting with tunable spin polarization in two-dimensional ferroelectric GaXY (X= Se, Te; Y= Cl, Br, I) family
• Electrically switchable hidden spin polarization in antiferroelectric crystals
• Inversion-symmetric Electron Gases as New Platforms for Topological Planar Josephson Junctions
• Investigation of the intrinsic hidden spin texture and spin-state segregation in centrosymmetric monolayer dichalcogenide: effectiveness of the electric-field approach