Spin-selective tunneling from nanowires of the candidate topological Kondo insulator SmB6

Nanowire tip probes magnetismThe material samarium hexaboride (SmB6) has been predicted to be a topological insulator that also features strong electronic correlations. Topological insulators exhibit so-called spin-momentum locking, which has been put to use in spintronics applications. Aishwarya et...

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Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2022-09, Vol.377 (6611), p.1218-1222
Main Authors: Anuva Aishwarya, Cai, Zhuozhen, Raghavan, Arjun, Romanelli, Marisa, Wang, Xiaoyu, Xu, Li, Gu, G D, Hirsbrunner, Mark, Hughes, Taylor, Liu, Fei, Jiao, Lin, Madhavan, Vidya
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Intermetallic compounds
Locking
Magnetic fields
Magnetism
Nanotechnology
Nanowires
Samarium
Samarium compounds
Scanning tunneling microscopy
Spintronics
Topological insulators
Tungsten
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Summary:Nanowire tip probes magnetismThe material samarium hexaboride (SmB6) has been predicted to be a topological insulator that also features strong electronic correlations. Topological insulators exhibit so-called spin-momentum locking, which has been put to use in spintronics applications. Aishwarya et al. exploited these properties to achieve spin-polarized tunneling through a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip. The researchers mounted an SmB6 nanowire onto a trimmed tungsten tip. This combined tip was then used to image the magnetic state in the material Fe1+xTe. Unlike conventional spin-polarized STM, the authors’ setup does not require the application of an external magnetic field, which makes for a less-invasive probe. —JS
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.abj8765