Abstract
We investigate theoretically the spin accumulation in a Rashba spin-orbit coupling quantum wire. Using the scattering matrix approach within the effective free-electron approximation, we have demonstrated the three components of spin polarization. It is found that by a few numerical examples, the two peaks for the out-of-plane spin accumulation〈Sz〉shift to the edges of quantum wire with the increase of propagation modes. The period of intrinsic oscillations〈Sx/y〉inversely proportions to the Rashba SOC strength. This effect may be used to differentiate the intrinsic spin accumulation from the extrinsic one.
Highlights
Spintronics is a rapidly developing field of research in recent years because spin-based devices are believed to be the new generation of electronic devices [1,2,3]
We investigate theoretically the spin accumulation in a Rashba spin-orbit coupling quantum wire
The Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC) effect is found to be very pronounced in some semiconductor layer (e.g., InAs or InGaAs) and its strength can be controlled by gate voltage [4]
Summary
We investigate theoretically the spin accumulation in a Rashba spin-orbit coupling quantum wire. The period of intrinsic oscillations Sx/y inversely proportions to the Rashba SOC strength This effect may be used to differentiate the intrinsic spin accumulation from the extrinsic one. Using the nonequilibrium Green’s function approach, Wang et al [15] have studied the intrinsic oscillation of spin accumulation induced by RSOC in a quantum wire (QW) system. The work in [12, 14, 15] has only considered the hard-wall potential confined Rashba QWs. In this paper, using the scattering matrix method within the effective free-electron approximation, we study theoretically the spin accumulation in a parabolic potential confined Rashba QW connected to two normal leads (without SOC) nonadiabatically, and the results are discussed and compared with the previous works [12,13,14,15]. The effective mass single-electron Hamiltonian in the QW is
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