Unraveling the Rashba-Dresselhaus effect and spin switching in ferroelectric AIO3 (A=K, Rb, Cs, Tl) perovskites

Harnessing the Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) driven manifestations in electronic structure for device application comprises one of the challenging fields in spintronics application. One such avenue to achieve this is via Rashba-Dresselhaus (RD) effect, which leads to the splitting of spin states at the band edges in momentum space enabling the creation of separate spin channels for spin current control. In some multifunctional perovskite materials, the RD effect coexists with ferroelectricity, where ferroelectric (FE) phase transitions can induce spin chirality reversal, presenting opportunities for spin-FET development. We explore the effect of A cation (A= K, Rb, Cs, Tl) in spin-FET application of ${\mathrm{AIO}}_{3}$ compounds via investigating the RD effect and FE properties. Our results demonstrate that smaller A-cation size leads to higher RD spin splitting, with ${\mathrm{KIO}}_{3}$ exhibiting the most promising performance. Out of the four compounds studied, three of them show RD spin splitting $\ensuremath{\ge}$ 1 eV\AA{} at the conduction band. Furthermore, we observe that FE phase transitions in all these compounds can influence the spin chirality. The FE switching barriers of all four compounds are below 1 eV/atom. ${\mathrm{KIO}}_{3}$ has the lowest barrier of 193 meV/atom. These findings highlight the potential of ${\mathrm{AIO}}_{3}$ compounds for spin-FET applications and suggest avenues for further optimization.