Out-of-plane equilibrium spin current in a quasi-two-dimensional electron gas under in-plane magnetic field

Abstract

Equilibrium spin-current is calculated in a quasi-two-dimensional electron gas with finite thickness under in-plane magnetic field and in the presence of Rashba- and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions. The transverse confinement is modeled by means of a parabolic potential. An orbital effect of the in-plane magnetic field is shown to mix a transverse quantized spin-up state with nearest-neighboring spin-down states. The out-off-plane component of the equilibrium spin current appears to be not zero in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field, provided at least two transverse-quantized levels are filled. In the absence of the magnetic field the obtained results coincide with the well-known results, yielding cubic dependence of the equilibrium spin current on the spin-orbit coupling constants. The persistent spin-current vanishes in the absence of the magnetic field if Rashba- and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coefficients,{\alpha} and {\beta}, are equal each other. In-plane magnetic field destroys this symmetry, and accumulates a finite spin-current as {\alpha} \rightarrow {\beta}. Magnetic field is shown to change strongly the equilibrium current of the in-plane spin components, and gives new contributions to the cubic-dependent on spin-orbit constants terms. These new terms depend linearly on the spin-orbit constants.