Piezotronic effect on Rashba spin–orbit coupling based on MAPbI3/ZnO heterostructures

Rashba spin–orbit coupling (SOC) is a core issue in semiconductor spintronics, which allows the manipulation of electron spin through an electric field rather than an external magnetic field, revealing a bright prospect for advanced electronic devices with ultra-high speed and integration. Conversely, the emerging piezotronic effect is the born characteristic for many semiconductors that have a non-central symmetric structure, such as ZnO and GaN. Here, we design three heterostructure devices, based on piezoelectric p-type (CH3NH3)PbI3 single crystals and n-type wurtzite-structured ZnO thin films, to theoretically study how the piezotronic effect can effectively work on the Rashba spin–orbit coupling. Benefiting from large piezoelectric charges at the interface when a vertical strain is applied, a high concentration of two-dimensional electron gas is induced in the plane of the heterostructure, which can tune the built-in electric field at the interface and further manipulate the Rashba SOC. With the increase in pressure, both the Rashba parameter and spin splitting are found to first vanish and then increase linearly for ZnO with doping densities of 1015 and 1016 cm−3. This work provides insight for manipulating electron spins via the introduction of piezocharges, showing great application potential of the piezotronic effect in tuning spintronic devices.