Our Institute participated successfully in the "56. ATG - Winterlauf" 2018. Despite the freezing cold temperatures and snow covered trails our colleagues put race numbers on and lined up with over 2500 other atheletes for the iconic 18,3 km long cross country run from Mulartshütte to Aachen. Alex (1:37:15), Markus (1:28:22) and Michael (1:14:10) as well as our very own Prof. em. Güntherodt (1:56:36) mastered the course and even had some energy left to smile for a finisher foto. Gratulations!

Phys. Rev. B 98, 241402(R)(2018)
The weak intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in graphene can be greatly enhanced by proximity coupling. Here, we report on the proximity-induced spin-orbit coupling in graphene transferred by hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) onto the topological insulator Bi_1.5Sb_0.5Te_1.7Se_1.3(BSTS) which was grown on a hBN substrate by vapor solid synthesis. Phase coherent transport measurements, revealing weak localization, allow us to extract the carrier density-dependent phase coherence length l_φ. While l_φ increases with increasing carrier density in the hBN/graphene/hBN reference sample, it decreases in graphene/BSTS due to the proximity coupling of BSTS to graphene. The latter behavior results from D'yakonov-Perel'-type spin scattering in graphene with a large proximity-induced spin-orbit coupling strength of at least 2.5 meV.

JETP Lett. 108, 326(2018)
We describe the trembling motion of conduction-band electrons in solids. The effect originates from the fact that, in the presence of the Rashba/Dresselhaus spin–orbit coupling and the Zeeman splitting, the electron velocity is not a conserved quantity and contains a contribution oscillating at the frequency determined by the spin gap. The phenomenon is similar to the Zitterwebegung of relativistic particles. Trembling motion of individual electrons can be phase-synchronized by initializing the electrons in the same spin states and detected as a macroscopic high-frequency electric current, which is maintained in the system until the electron spin coherence is lost. We also show that the amplitude of such a coherent Zitterbewegung current is increased when its frequency matches the plasmon frequency.