Cubic Dresselhaus interaction parameter from quantum corrections to the conductivity in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field

Abstract

We evaluate the quantum corrections to the conductivity of a two-dimensional electron system with competing Rashba (R) and linear and cubic Dresselhaus (D) spin-orbit interactions in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field $\mathbf{B}$. Within a perturbative approximation, we investigate the interplay between the spin-orbit coupling and the magnetic field in determining the transport regime in two different limiting scenarios: when only one of the linear terms, either Rashba or Dresselhaus, dominates, and at equal linear couplings, when the cubic Dresselhaus breaks the spin symmetry. In each instance, we find that for $\mathbf{B}$ higher than a critical value, the antilocalization correction is suppressed and the effective dephasing time saturates to a constant value determined only by the spin-orbit interaction. At equal R-D linear couplings, this value is directly proportional with the cubic Dresselhaus contribution. In the same regime, the magnetoconductivity is expressed as a simple logarithmic function dependent only on the cubic Dresselhaus constant.