Spin accumulation with spin-orbit interaction
Abstract
Spin accumulation is a crucial but imprecise concept in spintronics. In metal-based spintronics it is characterized in terms of semiclassical distribution functions. In semiconductors with a strong spin-orbit coupling the spin accumulation is interpreted as a superposition of coherent eigenstates. Both views can be reconciled by taking into account the electron-electron interaction: a sufficiently strong self-consistent exchange field reduces a spin accumulation to a chemical potential difference between the two spin bands even in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. We demonstrate the idea on a clean two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) by showing how the exchange field protects a spin accumulation from dephasing and introduces an easy-plane anisotropy.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0810.3386,
title = {Spin accumulation with spin-orbit interaction},
author = {Henri Saarikoski and Gerrit E. W. Bauer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.3386},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
3 figures