Engineering of Orbital Hybridization: An Exotic Strategy to Manipulate Orbital Current

Kun Zheng; Haonan Wang; Ju Chen; Hongxin Cui; Jing Meng; Zheng Li; Cuimei Cao; Haoyu Lin; Yuhao Wang; Keqi Xia; Jiahao Liu; Xiaoyu Feng; Hui Zhang; Bocheng Yu; Jiyuan Li; Yang Xu; Zhengzhong Yang; Shijing Gong; Qingfeng Zhan; Tian Shang

arXiv · 2601.12841

Engineering of Orbital Hybridization: An Exotic Strategy to Manipulate Orbital Current

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Current-induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) plays a crucial role in the next-generation spin-orbitronics. Enhancing its efficiency is both fundamentally and practically interesting and remains a challenge to date. Recently, orbital counterparts of spin effects that do not rely on the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) have been found as an alternative mechanism to realize it. This work highlights the engineering of copper oxidation states for manipulating the orbital current and its torque in the CuO$_x$-based heterostructures. The orbital hybridization and thus the orbital-Rashba-Edelstein effect at the CuO$_x$/Cu interfaces are significantly enhanced by increasing the copper oxidation state, yielding a torque efficiency that is almost ten times larger than the conventional heavy metals. The Cu$_4$O$_3$/Cu interface, rather than the widely accepted CuO/Cu interface, is revealed to account for the enhanced SOT performance in the CuO$_x$-based heterostructures. In addition, the torque efficiency can be alternatively switched between high and low thresholds through the redox reaction. The current results establish an exotic and robust strategy for engineering the orbital current and SOT for spin-orbitronics, which applies to other weak-SOC materials.

Explore related subjects

cond-mat.mtrl-sci cond-mat.str-el

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Kun Zheng, Haonan Wang, Ju Chen, Hongxin Cui, Jing Meng, Zheng Li, Cuimei Cao, Haoyu Lin, Yuhao Wang, Keqi Xia, Jiahao Liu, Xiaoyu Feng, Hui Zhang, Bocheng Yu, Jiyuan Li, Yang Xu, Zhengzhong Yang, Shijing Gong, Qingfeng Zhan, Tian Shang. 2026-01-19. Engineering of Orbital Hybridization: An Exotic Strategy to Manipulate Orbital Current. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.12841

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Measuring chiral phonons

Chiral phonons are quantized vibrations where the atomic motion in a solid breaks improper rotation symmetries. In many cases, chiral phonons possess angular momenta and are therefore selective to circularly polarized light. Both fundamental and applied research efforts on chiral phonons have been gaining increasing attention owing to their importance in a variety of fields including spintronics, spin-selective chemical reactions, thermal transport, quantum information processing and biosensing, where the bi-directional spin-lattice coupling enabled by chiral phonons can be harnessed in new ways, and potentially lead to new functionalities. Thus far, the studies of chiral phonons across diverse materials platforms have evolved largely independently within these fields, but the experimental techniques are often interrelated. In this perspective, we present a detailed description, as well as advantages and disadvantages of the current approaches for experimentally measuring chiral phonons in chiral and achiral materials. We conclude with a discussion of new methods for measuring chiral phonons. Ultimately, this work seeks to offer an experimental guide for systematically investigating the properties of chiral phonons in various materials systems and applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2026

A model of grain growth in UN integrating molecular dynamics, phase-field modeling, and uncertainty quantification

Grain growth kinetics and grain-boundary (GB) properties in uranium mononitride (UN) are investigated through an integrated multiscale framework combining molecular dynamics (MD), phase-field modeling, and surrogate-assisted uncertainty quantification. MD simulations yield GB energies for 27 symmetric tilt boundaries from 0--2000~K, which are consistent with available DFT values. The average GB energy is nearly temperature-independent below 1000~K and increases at higher temperatures. A mechanistic pore-drag model applied to the only available grain growth dataset for actinide nitrides yields a mobility reduction factor of $s \approx 0.93$--$0.99$, statistically indistinguishable from unity, confirming that pore drag is negligible under the experimental conditions. The intrinsic GB mobility is therefore extracted directly from the effective mobility, yielding $M_0 = 2.05\times10^{-15}$~m$^4$/(J$\cdot$s) and $Q_M = 0.89$~eV. Phase-field simulations conducted from 1500--2000~K confirm normal curvature-driven grain growth, with grain size distributions converging to the Hillert-like form. A surrogate-assisted global sensitivity analysis---combining principal component analysis, Gaussian process regression, and Sobol decomposition---reveals that the mobility prefactor $M_0$ dominates output variance at all times, followed by the activation energy $Q_M$, while the GB energy $\gamma$ contributes minimally. These results establish the first quantitative grain growth framework for UN and identify the reduction of uncertainty in $M_0$ and $Q_M$ as the highest-priority target for future experimental efforts.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2026

Silicon Solar Cell Design for >30% Efficiency via Singlet Fission

Singlet fission (SF) materials convert high-energy photons into multiple charge carriers, providing a route to exceed the efficiency limits of single-junction silicon solar cells without many of the complexities of multi-junction tandem designs. Following the first demonstration of an SF-enhanced silicon solar cell in 2025, there is a need to understand how SF materials can be effectively integrated into high-efficiency industrial silicon devices and translated from proof of concept to a manufacturable technology. Using coupled optical and electrical simulations, we assess the efficiency potential of several industrially relevant silicon cell architectures combined with SF materials. Interdigitated back-contact (IBC) cells offer the greatest potential for improvement due to unrestricted front-surface access and can achieve efficiencies exceeding 33%. However, performance is highly sensitive to front-surface passivation quality. Appropriate silicon design, particularly controlled surface doping and fixed interfacial charge, can mitigate recombination losses and relax passivation requirements for ultra-thin exciton-transfer layers.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗