Control of Spin Helix Symmetry in Semiconductor Quantum Wells by Crystal Orientation

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of spin-preserving symmetries due to the interplay of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in n-doped zinc-blende semiconductor quantum wells of general crystal orientation. It is shown that a conserved spin operator can be realized if and only if at least two growth-direction Miller indices agree in modulus. The according spin-orbit field has in general both in-plane and out-of-plane components and is always perpendicular to the shift vector of the corresponding persistent spin helix. We also analyze higher-order effects arising from the Dresselhaus term, and the impact of our results on weak (anti)localization corrections.

8 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (5)

• 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
• Direct mapping of the formation of a persistent spin helix: Supplementary information
• Spin relaxation in narrow wires of a two-dimensional electron gas
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• Zitterbewegung and bulk-edge Landau-Zener tunneling in topological insulators
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• Spin relaxation in wurtzite nanowires
• Magnetoconductance correction in zinc-blende semiconductor nanowires with spin-orbit coupling
• Hidden Zeeman-type spin polarization in bulk crystals
• Low-symmetry nanowire cross-sections for enhanced Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction
• Topological transitions in two-dimensional Floquet superconductors
• Persistent Spin Textures in Nonpolar Chiral Systems
• Reliable modeling of weak antilocalization for accurate spin-lifetime extraction
• Electron g-factor determined for quantum dot circuit fabricated from (110)-oriented GaAs quantum well