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Direct observation of the Aharonov-Casher phase

M. Koenig, A. Tschetschetkin, E. M. Hankiewicz, Jairo Sinova, V. Hock, V. Daumer, M. Schaefer, C. R. Becker, H. Buhmann, L. W. Molenkamp

cond-mat.mes-hallarXiv:cond-mat/0508396

Abstract

Ring structures fabricated from HgTe/HgCdTe quantum wells have been used to study Aharonov-Bohm type conductance oscillations as a function of Rashba spin-orbit splitting strength. We observe non-monotonic phase changes indicating that an additional phase factor modifies the electron wave function. We associate these observations with the Aharonov-Casher effect. This is confirmed by comparison with numerical calculations of the magneto-conductance for a multichannel ring structure within the Landauer-Büttiker formalism.

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