Zitterbewegungof Electronic Wave Packets in III-V Zinc-Blende Semiconductor Quantum Wells

Zitterbewegung of electronic wave packets in III-V zinc-blende semiconductor quantum wells.

We study the zitterbewegung of electronic wave packets in III-V zinc-blende semiconductor quantum wells due to spin-orbit coupling. Our results suggest a direct experimental proof of this fundamental effect, confirming a long-standing theoretical prediction. For electron motion in a harmonic quantum wire, we numerically and analytically find a resonance condition maximizing the zitterbewegung.

Electron-beam formation from spin-orbit interactions in zinc-blende semiconductor quantum wells.

We find a dramatic enhancement of electron propagation along a narrow range of real-space angles from an isotropic source in a two-dimensional quantum well made from a zinc-blende semiconductor. This "electron-beam" formation is caused by the interplay between spin-orbit interaction originating from a perpendicular electric field to the quantum well and the intrinsic spin-orbit field of the zin...

High-field wave packets in semiconductor quantum wells: A real-space finite-difference time-domain formalism

An untraditional space-time method for describing the dynamics of high-field electron-hole wave packets in semiconductor quantum wells is presented. A finite-difference time-domain technique is found to be computationally efficient and can incorporate Coulomb, static, terahertz, and magnetic fields to all orders, and thus can be applied to study many areas of high-field semiconductor physics. S...

Spin-Hall transport of heavy holes in III-V semiconductor quantum wells

We investigate spin transport of heavy holes in III-V semiconductor quantum wells in the presence of spin-orbit coupling of the Rashba type due to structure-inversion asymmetry. Similarly to the case of electrons, the longitudinal spin conductivity vanishes, whereas the off-diagonal elements of the spin-conductivity tensor are finite giving rise to an intrinsic spin-Hall effect. For a clean sys...

Non-linear electro-elastic coupling in highly strained zinc-blende compounds: InGaP/GaP [111] quantum wells