From narrow-gap and semimagnetic semiconductors to spintronics and topological matter: a life with spins

Abstract

The abundance of semiconductors in our smartphones, computers, fiber optic junctions, cars, light sources, photovoltaic and thermoelectric cells results from the possibilities of controlling their properties through doping, lighting, and applying various fields. This paper, a part of the volume celebrating 100 years of the Polish Physical Society, presents a biased selection of worthwhile results obtained by researchers at the Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences relevant, as seen today, to topological matter and spintronics. Comprehensive studies, combining materials development, experimental investigations, and theoretical description of narrow-gap and dilute-magnetic semiconductors have been especially significant in this context. This survey also emphasizes, in an autobiographical tone, a half of a century of the author's intellectual emotions accompanying the rise of ideas and quantitative theories, allowing identifying the physics behind ongoing and future observations.

version 3 is updated by recent results

References in corpus (28)

• Origin and control of high-temperature ferromagnetism in semiconductors
• Imaging current-induced switching of antiferromagnetic domains in CuMnAs
• On the character of states near the Fermi level in (Ga,Mn)As: impurity to valence band crossover
• Reorientation Transition in Single-Domain (Ga,Mn)As
• Origin and control of ferromagnetism in dilute magnetic semiconductors and oxides
• Robust spin-polarized midgap states at step edges of topological crystalline insulators
• Origin of ferromagnetism in (Zn,Co)O from magnetization and spin-dependent magnetoresistance
• Controlled aggregation of magnetic ions in a semiconductor. Experimental demonstration
• Paramagnetic GaN:Fe and ferromagnetic (Ga,Fe)N - relation between structural, electronic, and magnetic properties
• Hole states in wide band-gap diluted magnetic semiconductors and oxides
• Observation of strong-coupling effects in a diluted magnetic semiconductor (Ga,Fe)N
• Origin of bulk uniaxial anisotropy in zinc-blende dilute magnetic semiconductors
• Probing hole-induced ferromagnetic exchange in magnetic semiconductors by inelastic neutron scattering
• Fractional quantum Hall effect in CdTe
• Magnetic anisotropy of epitaxial (Ga,Mn)As on (113)A GaAs
• Theory of spin waves in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As
• Electron-hole contribution to the apparent s-d exchange interaction in III-V diluted magnetic semiconductors
• Monte Carlo simulations of ferromagnetism in p-CdMnTe quantum wells
• Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in a Diluted Magnetic Semiconductor
• Effects of charge dopants in quantum spin Hall materials
• Superexchange dominates in magnetic topological insulators
• Improved-Sensitivity Integral SQUID Magnetometry of (Ga,Mn)N Thin Films in Proximity to Mg-doped GaN
• Contact superconductivity in In-PbTe junctions
• Spin dynamics of a confined electron interacting with magnetic or nuclear spins: A semiclassical approach
• Quantitative theory of backscattering in topological HgTe and (Hg,Mn)Te quantum wells: acceptor states, Kondo effect, precessional dephasing, and bound magnetic polaron
• Thermodynamic and thermoelectric properties of (Ga,Mn)As and related compounds
• Upper bound for the s-d exchange integral in n-(Ga,Mn)N:Si from magnetotransport studies
• HgTe quantum wells for QHE metrology under soft cryomagnetic conditions: permanent magnets and liquid ${}^{4}He$ temperatures