Spin Hall Effect in p-type Semiconductors

The spin Hall effect is a phenomenon of inducing spin current by an external electric field. We recently proposed that this effect can occur in p-type semiconductors without relying upon any disorder scattering [S. Murakami et al., Science 301, 1348 (2003)]. This intrinsic effect is due to the ``Berry phase in momentum space'', representing topological structure of the Bloch band structure. We explain how the Berry phase brings about the spin Hall effect, and review several interesting aspects of this effect