Ordinary materials react to an electric field by generating an electrical polarization, and a magnetic field normally generates a magnetization. In magnetoelectric media, this conventional scheme is turned upside-down: an electric polarization is induced by a magnetic field and a magnetization results from an electric field. We develop a detailed theory for how this effect comes about in materials nanostructured into ultra-thin conducting sheets. Such quantum wells are found to exhibit a sizable magnetoelectric effect that could enable novel device applications. Antiferromagnetic order plays a central role in our theory. We reveal magnetic order in quantum-well structures to arise from dissipationless equilibrium currents. In the magnetoelectric effect, an electric field manipulates the antiferromagnetic currents such that they give rise to a macroscopic net magnetization. Our theory provides new avenues for pursuing antiferromagnetic spintronics as a post-silico electronics paradigm.
We present a theoretical study of Zeeman spin splitting for quasi-onedimensional valence-band edges in cylindrical
nanowires subject to a magnetic field parallel to the wire direction. The interplay between quantum confinement
and strong spin-orbit coupling in the valence band gives rise to a controllable large variation of the effective
g-factor for single wire levels. A direct correspondence is established between values for hole g-factors and
characteristic spin-polarization profiles for wire-level bound states. The correlation between hole spin splittings
and polarizations is mapped over the range of spin-orbit coupling strengths present in typical semiconductor
materials. We propose to use nanowire subband edges as a versatile laboratory for experimental and theoretical
study of the complex spin properties exhibited by quantum-confined holes.
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