Non-equilibrium spin polarization effects in spin-orbit coupling system and contacting metallic leads

Abstract

We study theoretically the current-induced spin polarization effect in a two-terminal mesoscopic structure which is composed of a semiconductor two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) bar with Rashba spin-orbit (SO) interaction and two attached ideal leads. The nonequilibrium spin density is calculated by solving the scattering wave functions explicitly within the ballistic transport regime. We found that for a Rashba SO system the electrical current can induce spin polarization in the SO system as well as in the ideal leads. The induced polarization in the 2DEG shows some qualitative features of the intrinsic spin Hall effect. On the other hand, the nonequilibrium spin density in the ideal leads, after being averaged in the transversal direction, is independent of the distance measured from the lead/SO system interface, except in the vicinity of the interface. Such a lead polarization effect can even be enhanced by the presence of weak impurity scattering in the SO system and may be detectable in real experiments.

6 pages,5 figures

References in corpus (18)

• Dissipationless Quantum Spin Current at Room Temperature
• Experimental observation of the spin-Hall effect in a two dimensional spin-orbit coupled semiconductor system
• Spin current and polarization in impure 2D electron systems with spin-orbit coupling
• On A Proper Definition of Spin Current
• Can Non-Equilibrium Spin Hall Accumulation be Induced in Ballistic Nanostructures?
• Spin Hall effect and Berry phase in two dimensional electron gas
• Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in the Two Dimensional Hole Gas
• Imaging mesoscopic spin Hall flow: Spatial distribution of local spin currents and spin densities in and out of multiterminal spin-orbit coupled semiconductor nanostructures
• Spin-Hall Effect in Two-Dimensional Electron Systems with Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling and Disorder
• Absence of vertex correction for the spin Hall effect in p-type semiconductors
• SU(2)xU(1) unified theory for charge, orbit and spin currents
• Mesoscopic Spin Hall Effect in Multiprobe Ballistic Spin-Orbit Coupled Semiconductor Bridges
• Sum rules for spin-Hall conductivity cancelation
• Spin resolved Hall effect driven by spin-orbit coupling
• Spin Hall effect in clean two dimensional electron gases with Rashba spin-orbit coupling
• Spin Hall Effect and Spin Transfer in Disordered Rashba Model
• Kinetic magnetoelectric effect in a 2D semiconductor strip due to boundary-confinement induced spin-orbit coupling
• Spin accumulation in ballistic Rashba bar

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Enhancement of polarization in a spin-orbit coupling quantum wire with a constriction
• Spin-Hall effect and spin-coherent excitations in a strongly confined two-dimensional hole gas
• Curvature induced out of plane spin accumulation
• Oscillation of spin polarization in a two-dimensional hole gas under a perpendicular magnetic field