Boosting the Edelstein effect of two-dimensional electron gases by ferromagnetic exchange

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that inducing ferromagnetism in SrTiO3-based 2DEGs significantly boosts the Edelstein effect efficiency, with a detailed theoretical analysis revealing optimal magnetic field conditions for maximum spin-charge conversion.

Contribution

The paper introduces a theoretical approach to enhance the Edelstein effect in SrTiO3 2DEGs by incorporating ferromagnetic exchange, showing how magnetic fields influence spin textures and conversion efficiency.

Findings

Magnetic exchange coupling increases Edelstein effect efficiency.

Optimal magnetic field maximizes spin-charge conversion.

Competition between exchange and Rashba effects determines efficiency.

Abstract

Strontium titanate (SrTiO$_3$) two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) have broken spatial inversion symmetry and possess a finite Rashba spin-orbit coupling. This enables the interconversion of charge and spin currents through the direct and inverse Edelstein effects, with record efficiencies at low temperature, but more modest effects at room temperature. Here, we show that making these 2DEGs ferromagnetic enhances the conversion efficiency by nearly one order of magnitude. Starting from the experimental band structure of non-magnetic SrTiO$_3$ 2DEGs, we mimic magnetic exchange coupling by introducing an out-of-plane Zeeman term in a tight-binding model. We then calculate the band structure and spin textures for increasing internal magnetic fields and compute the Edelstein effect using a semiclassical Boltzmann approach. We find that the conversion efficiency first increases strongly with increasing magnetic field, then shows a maximum and finally decreases. This field dependence is caused by the competition of the exchange coupling with the effective Rashba interaction. While enhancing the splitting of band pairs amplifies the Edelstein effect, weakening the in-plane Rashba-type spin texture reduces it.