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last mo.

Rice Team Shows Wrinkled 2D Materials Host Persistent Spin Helix With ~1 nm Precession

Curvature-driven flexoelectric fields in molybdenum ditelluride folds stabilize electron spin, pointing to more compact, lower-power spintronic designs.

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Rice University researchers Manoj Mattur (left) and Professor Boris Yakobson (right) review data showing how wrinkles in 2D materials influence electron spin. Their work demonstrates how simple bends in atom-thin sheets could lead to faster, more efficient spintronic devices.
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Overview

  • Rice University researchers report that bending atomically thin layers induces a persistent spin helix state that preserves spin even during scattering.
  • The study identifies flexoelectric polarization from uneven strain as the internal field that splits spins and organizes them into the PSH texture.
  • In hairpin folds of molybdenum ditelluride, the team measures an approximately 1 nanometer spin-precession length, the shortest reported so far.
  • The authors present controlled bending — a simple mechanical pinch in 2D materials — as a practical route to engineer device-relevant spin fields.
  • The peer-reviewed findings appear in Matter and were supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office, NSF, DOE and DoD.