Kinetic magnetoelectric effect in a 2D semiconductor strip due to boundary-confinement induced spin-orbit coupling

Abstract

In a thin strip of a two-dimensional semiconductor electronic system, spin-orbit coupling may be induced near both edges of the strip due to the substantial spatial variation of the confining potential in the boundary regions. In this paper we show that, in the presence of boundary-confinement induced spin-orbit coupling, a longitudinal charge current circulating through a 2D semiconductor strip may cause \textit{strong} non-equilibrium spin accumulation near both edges of the strip. The spins will be polarized along the normal of the 2DEG plane but in opposite directions at both edges of the strip. This phenomenon is essentially a kinetic magnetoelectric effect from the theoretical points of view, but it manifests in a very similar form as was conceived in a spin Hall effect.

7 pages, 4 figs

References in corpus (7)

• Dissipationless Quantum Spin Current at Room Temperature
• Spin current and polarization in impure 2D electron systems with spin-orbit coupling
• Theory of Spin Hall conductivity in n-doped GaAs
• Can Non-Equilibrium Spin Hall Accumulation be Induced in Ballistic Nanostructures?
• Spin-Hall effect in a disordered 2D electron-system
• Imaging mesoscopic spin Hall flow: Spatial distribution of local spin currents and spin densities in and out of multiterminal spin-orbit coupled semiconductor nanostructures
• Mesoscopic Spin Hall Effect in Multiprobe Ballistic Spin-Orbit Coupled Semiconductor Bridges

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Persistent spin current in nano-devices and definition of the spin current
• Anisotropic current-induced spin accumulation in the two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit coupling
• Strongly modulated transmission of a spin-split quantum wire with local Rashba interaction
• Spin polarized current generation from quantum dots without magnetic fields
• Filtering of spin currents based on ballistic ring
• Opposite spin accumulations on the transverse edges by the confining potential
• Enhanced spin Hall effect by tuning antidot potential: Proposal for a spin filter
• Quenching of Spin Hall Effect in Ballistic nano-junctions
• Some symmetry properties of spin currents and spin polarizations in multi-terminal mesoscopic spin-orbit coupled systems