Prof. Dr. Dieter Weiss
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Prof. Dr. Werner Wegscheider
Spin polarized transport probed in low-dimensional hole systems
The spin Hall effect is about the generation of a transverse pure spin current by an electrical charge current as a
consequence of spin-orbit interaction in, e.g., semiconductors. This spin current in turn can generate a detectable electric
field. In our proposal we focus on the spin Hall effect in two-dimensional hole systems (2DHS). By employing high mobility
2DHSs in GaAs based heterojunctions we suggest two geometries, the "H-geometry" and the "spin-injection-geometry" to probe
the spin Hall effect directly in transport. Complementary we plan to fabricate in-plane pn-junctions serving as detectors
for spin currents or spin polarized cur-rents either in two-dimensional hole or electron gases. In the short run we aim at
reproducing a recent experiment [1] representing so far the only proof of a spin-Hall effect in 2DHSs. In the longer run
experiments like the Stern-Gerlach experiment for two-dimensional electrons can be accomplished with lateral pn-junctions.
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