Emergence of radial Rashba spin-orbit fields in twisted van der Waals heterostructures

Abstract

Rashba spin-orbit coupling is a quintessential spin interaction appearing in virtually any electronic heterostructure. Its paradigmatic spin texture in the momentum space forms a tangential vector field. Using first-principles investigations, we demonstrate that in twisted homobilayers and hetero-multilayers, the Rashba coupling can be predominantly radial, parallel to the momentum. Specifically, we study four experimentally relevant structures: twisted bilayer graphene (Gr), twisted bilayer WSe$_2$, and twisted multilayers WSe$_2$/Gr/WSe$_2$ and WSe$_2$/Gr/Gr/WSe$_2$. We show, that the Rashba spin-orbit field texture in such structures can be controlled by an electric field, allowing to tune it from radial to tangential. Such spin-orbit engineering should be useful for designing novel spin-charge conversion and spin-orbit torque schemes, as well as for controlling correlated phases and superconductivity in van der Waals materials.