We investigate the singlet-triplet relaxation process of a two electron silicon quantum dot. In the absence of a perpendicular magnetic field, we find that spin-orbit coupling is not the main source of singlet-triplet relaxation. Relaxation in this regime occurs mainly via virtual states and is due to nuclear hyperfine coupling. In the presence of an external magnetic field perpendicular to the...

We discuss the problem of spin-orbit interaction in a two-dimensional chaotic or diffusive quantum dot in the presence of exchange correlations. Spin-orbit scattering breaks spin rotation invariance, and in the crossover regime between different symmetries of the spin-orbit coupling, the problem has no closed solution. A conventional choice of a many-particle basis in a numerical diagonalizatio...

We describe a new effect in semiconductor spintronics that leads to dissipationless spin currents in paramagnetic spin-orbit coupled systems. We argue that in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system with substantial Rashba spin-orbit coupling, a spin current that flows perpendicular to the charge current is intrinsic. In the usual case where both spin-orbit split bands are occupied, the...

In lateral quantum dots, the combined effect of both Dresselhaus and Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit coupling is equivalent to an effective magnetic field +/- B(SO) which has the opposite sign for s(z)= +/- 1/2 spin electrons. When the external magnetic field is perpendicular to the planar structure, the field B(SO) generates an additional splitting for electron states as compared to the spin splitti...

We report electronically nonadiabatic dynamics calculations including spin-orbit coupling for the photodissociation of CH(2)ClBr to yield Cl((2)P(3∕2)), Cl((2)P(1∕2)), Br((2)P(3∕2)), and Br((2)P(1∕2)). The potential energy is a 24 × 24 matrix (divided up here into four 6 × 6 blocks in a first approximation to the problem), in a spin-coupled fully diabatic representation obtained by combining th...

In systems with strong spin-orbit coupling, the relationship between spin transfer torque and the divergence of the spin current is generalized to a relation between spin transfer torques, total angular momentum current, and mechanical torques. In ferromagnetic semiconductors, where the spin-orbit coupling is large, these considerations modify the behavior of the spin transfer torques. One exam...

We propose an experimental scheme to observe spin-orbit coupling effects of a two-dimensional Fermi atomic gas cloud by coupling its internal electronic states (pseudospins) to radiation in a Lambda configuration. The induced spin-orbit coupling can be of the Dresselhaus and Rashba type with a Zeeman term. We show that the optically induced spin-orbit coupling can lead to a spin-dependent effec...