Finite-size Effects in a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas with Rashba Spin-Orbit Interaction

Abstract

Within the Kubo formalism, we estimate the spin-Hall conductivity in a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction and study its variation as a function of disorder strength and system size. The numerical algorithm employed in the calculation is based on the direct numerical integration of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation in a spin-dependent variant of the particle source method. We find that the spin-precession length, L_s controlled by the strength of the Rashba coupling, establishes the critical lengthscale that marks the significant reduction of the spin-Hall conductivity in bulk systems. In contrast, the electron mean free path, inversely proportional to the strength of disorder, appears to have only a minor effect.

5 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Can Non-Equilibrium Spin Hall Accumulation be Induced in Ballistic Nanostructures?
• Resonant Spin Hall Conductance in Two-Dimensional Electron Systems with Rashba Interaction in a Perpendicular Magnetic Field
• Absence of vertex correction for the spin Hall effect in p-type semiconductors
• Dissipation effects in spin-Hall transport of electrons and holes
• Mesoscopic Spin Hall Effect in Multiprobe Ballistic Spin-Orbit Coupled Semiconductor Bridges
• Spin Hall effect of conserved current: Conditions for a nonzero spin Hall current

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Semiclassical theories of the anomalous Hall effect
• What can we learn about the dynamics of transported spins by measuring shot noise in spin-orbit-coupled nanostructures?
• Spin-Hall conductivity of a spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction and magnetic impurities
• Spin and Charge Shot Noise in Mesoscopic Spin Hall Systems