Pressure-induced electron-spin polarization in the non-magnetic heterostructure

Abstract

Pressure-induced spin-dependent electron transmission through a non-magnetic III-V semiconductor symmetric well is studied theoretically. The output transmission current polarization at zero magnetic field is investigated. Transparency of electron transmission is calculated as functions of electron energy, pressure and well width, within the one electron band approximation along with the spin-orbit interaction. Enhanced spin-polarized resonant tunneling in the heterostructure due to Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit coupling induced splitting of the resonant level and the compressed spin-polarized due to pressure effect are observed. Our results show that Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling is dominant for the pressure effect and the computed polarization efficiency increases (i) with the pressure effect and (ii) when the well width is decreased. This effect could be employed in the fabrication of spin filters, spin injectors and detectors based on non-magnetic semiconductors.