Gate Control of Spin-Layer-Locking FETs and Application to Monolayer LuIO

A recent 2D spinFET concept proposes to switch electrostatically between two separate sublayers with strong and opposite intrinsic Rashba effects, exploiting the spin-layer-locking mechanism in centrosymmetric materials with local dipole fields. In this talk, I will discuss a novel monolayer material within this family, lutetium oxide iodide (LuIO), that we identified with first-principles simulations. It displays one of the largest Rashba effects among 2D materials (up to k_R = 0.08 Å^–1), leading to a π/2 rotation of the spins over just 1 nm. The monolayer was predicted to be exfoliable from its experimentally known 3D bulk counterpart, with a binding energy lower than graphene. I will present our characterisation and our simulations of the interplay between the two gate-controlled parameters for such devices: doping and spin channel selection. Finally, I will discuss how the ability to split the spin channels in energy diminishes with doping, leading to specific gate-operation guidelines that can apply to all devices based on spin-layer locking.