Spin-orbit-induced circulating currents in a semiconductor nanostructure

Abstract

Circulating orbital currents produced by the spin-orbit interaction for a single electron spin in a quantum dot are explicitly evaluated at zero magnetic field, along with their effect on the total magnetic moment (spin and orbital) of the electron spin. The currents are dominated by coherent superpositions of the conduction and valence envelope functions of the electronic state, are smoothly varying within the quantum dot, and are peaked roughly halfway between the dot center and edge. Thus the spatial structure of the spin contribution to the magnetic moment (which is peaked at the dot center) differs greatly from the spatial structure of the orbital contribution. Even when the spin and orbital magnetic moments cancel (for $g=0$) the spin can interact strongly with local magnetic fields, e.g. from other spins, which has implications for spin lifetimes and spin manipulation.

6 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Electrically driven single electron spin resonance in a slanting Zeeman field
• Orbital magnetization in periodic insulators
• Fast and robust spin manipulation in a quantum dot by electric fields
• Method for Full Bloch-Sphere Control of a Localized Spin via a Single Electrical Gate

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Geometric and compositional influences on spin-orbit induced circulating currents in nanostructures
• g-Factor Modification in a Bulk InGaAs Epilayer by an In-plane Electric Field
• Orbital ferromagnetism in interacting few-electron dots with strong spin-orbit coupling