Spin splitting induced by spin-orbit interaction in chiral nanotubes.
We show that chiral tubes present spin splitting at the Fermi level in the absence of a magnetic field, whereas achiral tubes preserve spin degeneracy, as evidenced by tight-binding electronic structure calculations with the inclusion of spin-orbit interaction. These remarkably different behaviors of chiral and nonchiral nanotubes have a symmetry origin, which may provide a global explanation to recently reported spin-dependent transport experiments which were in apparent contradiction.
Chico
L
L
Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 45071 Toledo, Spain.
López-Sancho
M P
MP
Muñoz
M C
MC