Large Spin Hall and Edelstein effects in Weyl semimetal WTe2 up to Room Temperature

The discovery of topological semimetals has revealed the opportunities to realize several extraordinary physical phenomena in condensed matter physics. Here, we report current-induced spin polarization, i.e. the spin Hall effect [1] and the Edelstein effect [2] and its inverse phenomenon in type-II Weyl semimetal WTe2 up to room temperature. In addition, to spin Hall and Rashba-Edelstein effects, our measurements also show an out-of-plane electrical field-induced spin polarization in WTe2 due to spin momentum locking of the spin-polarized bulk Fermi states [2]. These findings open opportunities for spin-orbit based spintronic technologies and possibilities for the realization of new states of topological matter with novel spin textures.
1. Observation of Spin Hall Effect in Weyl Semimetal WTe2, arXiv:1812.02113 (2019).
2. Edelstein Effect in Type-II Weyl Semimetal WTe2, arXiv:1910.06225 (2019).