Metal-insulator transition in a quantum wire driven by a modulated Rashba spin-orbit coupling

Abstract

We study the ground-state properties of electrons confined to a quantum wire and subject to a smoothly modulated Rashba spin-orbit coupling. When the period of the modulation becomes commensurate with the band filling, the Rashba coupling drives a quantum phase transition to a nonmagnetic insulating state. Using bosonization and a perturbative renormalization group approach, we find that this state is robust against electron-electron interactions. The gaps to charge- and spin excitations scale with the amplitude of the Rashba modulation with a common interaction-dependent exponent. An estimate of the expected size of the charge gap, using data for a gated InAs heterostructure, suggests that the effect can be put to practical use in a future spin transistor design.

4 pages; published version (added references, typos corrected)

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• Edge Dynamics in a Quantum Spin Hall State: Effects from Rashba Spin-Orbit Interaction
• Modulated Rashba interaction in a quantum wire: Spin and charge dynamics
• Spectral properties of Luttinger liquids: A comparative analysis of regular, helical, and spiral Luttinger liquids
• Lindblad equation approach to the optimal working point in nonequilibrium stationary states of an interacting electronic one-dimensional system: Application to the spinless Hubbard chain in the clean and in the weakly disordered limit
• Spin polarization control by electric means: proposal for a spin diode
• Intrinsic spin Hall effect in systems with striped spin-orbit coupling
• Proposal for a Datta-Das transistor in the quantum Hall regime
• Relaxation of flying spin qubits in quantum wires by hyperfine interaction
• Interaction effects in a microscopic quantum wire model with strong spin-orbit interaction
• Graphene-based spin switch device via modulated Rashba field and strain
• Spectral properties of one-dimensional spiral spin density wave states
• Spin freezing by Anderson localization in one-dimensional semiconductors
• Spin Filtering in a Nonuniform Quantum Wire with Rashba Spin-Orbit Interaction
• Density inhomogeneities and Rashba spin-orbit coupling interplay in oxide interfaces
• Manipulating the Tomonaga-Luttinger exponent by electric field modulation
• Transport through a band insulator with Rashba spin-orbit coupling: metal-insulator transition and spin-filtering effects
• Modulation induced transport signatures in correlated electron waveguides
• Spin-filtering and charge- and spin-switching effects in a quantum wire with periodically attached stubs
• Half-metal phases in a quantum wire with modulated spin-orbit interaction
• Spin-polarized current separator based on a fork-shaped Rashba nanostructure
• Local spin polarisation of electrons in Rashba semiconductor nanowires: effects of the bound state
• Spin polarization direction switch based on an asymmetrical quantum wire
• Long range alternating spin current order in a quantum wire with modulated spin-orbit interactions