Ballistic side jump motion of electrons and holes in semiconductor quantum wells

Abstract

We investigate the ballistic motion of electrons and holes in III-V semiconductor quantum wells with spin-orbit coupling and a homogeneous in-plane electric field. As a result of a non-perturbative treatment of both of these influences, particle wave packets undergo a pronounced side jump perpendicular to the field direction. For wave packets of sufficient width the amplitude of this motion can be estimated analytically and increases with decreasing field strength. We discuss the scaling behavior of the effect and some if its experimental implications

4 pages, 3 figures included

References in corpus (5)

• Dissipationless Quantum Spin Current at Room Temperature
• Zitterbewegung of electronic wave packets in semiconductor nanostructures
• Unified description of the Zitterbewegung for spintronic, graphene and superconducting systems
• Spin-Hall transport of heavy holes in III-V semiconductor quantum wells
• Spin Hall Effect

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Transient Zitterbewegung of charge carriers in graphene and carbon nanotubes
• Cyclotron motion in graphene
• Cyclotron motion and magnetic focusing in semiconductor quantum wells with spin-orbit coupling
• Spin drift and diffusion in one- and two-subband helical systems
• Topological insulator spin transistor