Physics Commons^™

Reversible Spin Texture In Ferroelectric Hfo2, L. L. Tao, Tula R. Paudel, Alexey Kovalev, Evgeny Tsymbal

Evgeny Tsymbal Publications

Spin-orbit coupling effects occurring in noncentrosymmetric materials are known to be responsible for nontrivial spin configurations and a number of emergent physical phenomena. Ferroelectric materials may be especially interesting in this regard due to reversible spontaneous polarization making possible a nonvolatile electrical control of the spin degrees of freedom. Here, we explore a technologically relevant oxide material, HfO₂, which has been shown to exhibit robust ferroelectricity in a noncentrosymmetric orthorhombic phase. Using theoretical modelling based on density-functional theory, we investigate the spin-dependent electronic structure of the ferroelectric HfO₂ and demonstrate the appearance of chiral spin textures driven …