Giant spin Hall effect in AB-stacked MoTe2/WSe2 bilayers

Abstract The spin Hall effect (SHE), in which electrical current generates transverse spin current, plays an important role in spintronics for the generation and manipulation of spin-polarized electrons 1–7. The phenomenon originates from spin-orbit coupling. In general, stronger spin-orbit coupling favors larger SHEs but shorter spin relaxation times and diffusion lengths 1,4–7. To achieve both large SHEs and long-range spin transport in a single material has remained a challenge. Here we demonstrate a giant intrinsic SHE in AB-stacked MoTe2/WSe2 moiré bilayers by direct magneto optical imaging. Under moderate electrical currents with density < 1 A/m, we observe spin accumulation on transverse sample edges that nearly saturates the spin density. We also demonstrate long-range spin Hall transport and efficient non-local spin accumulation limited only by the device size (about 10 µm). The gate dependence shows that the giant SHE occurs only near the Chern insulating state, and at low temperatures, it emerges after the quantum anomalous Hall breakdown. Our results demonstrate moiré engineering of Berry curvature and large SHEs for potential spintronics applications.