Spontaneous Emergence of Persistent Spin Helix from Homogeneous Spin Polarization

Abstract

We demonstrate that a homogeneous spin polarization in one-dimensional structures of finite length in the presence of Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit coupling decays spontaneously toward a persistent spin helix. The analysis of formation of spin helical state is presented within a novel approach based on a mapping of spin drift-diffusion equations into a heat equation for a complex field. Such a strikingly different and simple method allows generating robust spin structures whose properties can be tuned by the strength of the spin orbit interaction and/or structure's length. We generalize our results for two-dimensional case predicting formation of persistent spin helix in two-dimensional channels from homogeneous spin polarization.

References in corpus (11)

• An Exact SU(2) Symmetry and Persistent Spin Helix in a Spin-Orbit Coupled System
• Emergence of the persistent spin helix in semiconductor quantum wells
• Spin current and polarization in impure 2D electron systems with spin-orbit coupling
• Non-diffusive spin dynamics in a two-dimensional electron gas
• Spin relaxation in narrow wires of a two-dimensional electron gas
• Long-Lived Spin Coherence States
• Spin relaxation in $n$-type GaAs quantum wells with transient spin grating
• Spin oscillations in transient diffusion of a spin pulse in n-type semiconductor quantum wells
• Electric-field induced spin excitations in two-dimensional spin-orbit coupled systems
• Diffusion and transport of spin pulses in an $n$-type semiconductor quantum well
• Radial Spin Helix in Two-Dimensional Electron Systems with Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling