Electrical detection of the spin hall effect in a two-dimensional electron gas

Abstract

The spin Hall effect has been investigated for an InAs heterostructure that provides a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas. Due to the spin Hall effect, the motion of the spin-polarized electrons is curved and gives rise to a charge accumulation at the edge of the InAs channel. This charge accumulation induces a transverse voltage in the absence of an external magnetic field. We estimated the spin Hall sheet conductance of the InAs heterostructure to be 7.2 x 10(-4) Omega(-1) from the observed transverse voltage at 1.8 K. The magnitude of the spin Hall conductance indicates that the spin Hall effect observed in this experiment originates from an extrinsic origin rather than an intrinsic band structure.