I will talk about the helical spin order which arises in the thermodynamical equilibrium in a one-dimensional (semi)conductor with spin impurities (e.g., nuclear spins, or spins of localized magnetic impurities). The helical order in localized spins is a consequence of the dimensionality, and thus very general, arising in metals, semiconductors, and even gapped phases, like superconductors. I will show that the order follows from the resonant peak of the response (spin susceptibility) of a one-dimensional system. I will discuss recent low temperature transport experiments with semiconducting wires which suggest that such helical order was established in nuclear spins of atoms of the wire. I will explain how such a helical order can be useful in the semi-super hybrid platform to stabilize Majorana fermions and to produce even more exotic many body excitations like fractionally charged fermions and parafermions.

Date Published: 17 August 2014
PDF: 1 pages
Proc. SPIE 9167, Spintronics VII, 916712 (17 August 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2063531

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9167:
Spintronics VII
Henri-Jean Drouhin; Jean-Eric Wegrowe; Manijeh Razeghi, Editor(s)