Phonon-drag thermopower and hot-electron energy-loss rate in a Rashba spin–orbit coupled two-dimensional electron system

Abstract

We theoretically study the phonon-drag contribution to the thermoelectric power and the hot-electron energy-loss rate in a Rashba spin–orbit coupled two-dimensional electron system in the Bloch–Gruneisen (BG) regime. We assume that electrons interact with longitudinal acoustic phonons through a deformation potential and with both longitudinal and transverse acoustic phonons through a piezoelectric potential. The effect of the Rashba spin–orbit interaction on the magnitude and temperature dependence of the phonon-drag thermoelectric power and hot-electron energy-loss rate is discussed. We numerically extract the exponent of temperature dependence of the phonon-drag thermopower and the energy-loss rate. We find that the exponents are suppressed due to the presence of the Rashba spin–orbit coupling.