Spintronics is aimed at actively controlling and manipulating the spin degrees of freedom in semiconductor devices. A promising way to achieve this goal is to make use of the tunable Rashba effect that relies on the spin-orbit interaction in a two-dimensional electron system immersed in an inversion-asymmetric environment. The spin-orbit-induced spin splitting of the two-dimensional electron st...

We demonstrate that in an inversion-asymmetric two-dimensional electron system (2DES) with both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings taken into account, certain transport directions on which no spin precession occurs can be found when the injected spin is properly polarized. By analyzing the expectation value of spin with respect to the injected electron state on each space point in the ...

A theoretical study is presented for interactions between surface acoustic waves ~SAWs! and a two-dimensional electron gas ~2DEG! in the presence of spin-orbit ~SO! interaction ~SOI! induced by the Rashba effect. It is found that the presence of the SOI in a 2DEG can open up new channels for electronic transitions. As a result, an enhanced absorption of the SAWs by a 2DEG can be achieved throug...

To fix the notation, let us start by giving some details on the helicity eigenstates basis. The helicity operator is defined as S = [p̂⇥ ~ ]z and its eigenstates, |ksi, with s = ±1, satisfy the relation S|k±i = ±|k±i. A simple calculation shows in particular that |k±i can be expressed in terms of the standard spin eigenstates, |k "i and |k #i, as |k±i = (exp ( i✓k)|k "i± i|k #i)/ p 2 with ✓k = a...

We present a theoretical method to calculate the expectation value of spin in an inversion-asymmetric twodimensional (2D) system with respect to an arbitrarily spin-polarized electron state, injected via an ideal point contact. The 2D system is confined in a [001]-grown quantum well, where both the Rashba and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings are taken into account. The obtained analytical r...

We present a unified description of zitterbewegung-like phenomena for electron and hole systems showing Rashba spin splitting as well as for electrons in single-layer and bilayer graphene. The former class of systems can be interpreted as “nonrelativistic” whereas the latter are often called “ultrarelativistic” so that our unified description indicates an interesting connection between these tw...

Electrons with spin-orbit coupling moving in mesoscopic structures can often exhibit local spin polarization. In this paper, we study the influence of the Rashba coupling on the scattering of two-dimensional electrons from a circular disk. It is observed that spin-polarized regions exist, even if the incident electrons are unpolarized. In addition to the distributions of charge and spin current...

Surfaces of semiconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling are of great interest for use in spintronic devices exploiting the Rashba effect. BiTeI features large Rashba-type spin splitting in both valence and conduction bands. Either can be shifted towards the Fermi level by surface band bending induced by the two possible polar terminations, making Rashba spin-split electron or hole bands elec...

The spin Hall effect in a two-dimensional electron system on honeycomb lattice with both intrinsic and Rashba spin-orbit couplings is studied numerically. Integer quantized spin Hall conductance is obtained at the zero Rashba coupling limit when electron Fermi energy lies in the energy gap created by the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling, in agreement with recent theoretical prediction. While nonze...

Dario Bercioux,1,2 Michele Governale,3 Vittorio Cataudella,2 and Vincenzo Marigliano Ramaglia2 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg, D-93040, Germany 2Coherentia-INFM and Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università degli Studi “Federico II,” I-80126 Napoli, Italy 3NEST-INFM and Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126 Pisa, Italy Received 18 February 2005; ...