The relative strengths of Rashba and Dresselhaus terms describing the spin-orbit coupling in semiconductor quantum well (QW) structures are extracted from photocurrent measurements on n-type InAs QWs containing a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). This novel technique makes use of the angular distribution of the spin-galvanic effect at certain directions of spin orientation in the plane of a ...

We study nanowires with proximity-induced s-wave superconducting pairing in an external magnetic field that rotates along the wire. Such a system is equivalent to nanowires with Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling, with strength proportional to the derivative of the field angle. For realistic parameters, we demonstrate that a set of permanent magnets can bring a nearby nanowire into the topological...

The polarization vector of the Rashba spin, which must be parallel to the two-dimensional (2D) plane in an ideal system, is found to change abruptly and definitely to the direction perpendicular to the surface at the K point of the Brillouin zone of a real hexagonal system, the Tl/Si(111)-(1x1) surface. This finding obtained experimentally by angle-resolved and spin-resolved photoemission measu...

Abstract. We analyze the linear conductance of a semiconductor quantum wire containing a region where a local Rashba spin-orbit interaction is present. We show that Fano lineshapes appear in the conductance due to the formation of quasi bound states which interfere with the direct transmission along the wire, a mechanism that we term the Fano-Rashba effect. We obtain the numerical solution of t...

We present a new technique for producing two- and three-dimensional Rashba-type spin-orbit couplings for ultracold atoms without involving light. The method relies on a sequence of pulsed inhomogeneous magnetic fields imprinting suitable phase gradients on the atoms. For sufficiently short pulse durations, the time-averaged Hamiltonian well approximates the Rashba Hamiltonian. Higher order corr...

Using a three-dimensional spin polarimeter we have gathered evidence for the interference of spin states in photoemission from the surface alloy Sb/Ag(111). This system features a small Rashba-type spin splitting of a size comparable to the momentum broadening of the quasiparticles, thus causing an intrinsic overlap between states with orthogonal spinors. Besides a small spin polarization cause...

The Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions are both shown to yield the low temperature spin-Hall effect for strongly localized electrons coupled to phonons. A frequency-dependent electric field E(omega) generates a spin-polarization current, normal to E, due to interference of hopping paths. At zero temperature the corresponding spin-Hall conductivity is real and is proportional to omeg...

Julen Ibañez-Azpiroz,1,2 Aitor Bergara,1,2,3 E. Ya. Sherman,4,5 and Asier Eiguren1,2 1Materia Kondentsatuaren Fisika Saila, Zientzia eta Teknologia Fakultatea, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, 644 Postakutxatila, 48080 Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain 2Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal 4, 20018 Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain 3Centro de Fı́sica de Materiales CFM M...

We present a simple and pedagogical derivation of the spin current as the linear response to an external electric field for both Rashba and Luttinger spin–orbital coupling Hamiltonians. Except for the adiabatic approximation, our derivation is exact to the linear order of the electric field for both models. The spin current is a direct result of the difference in occupation levels between diffe...