We investigate the spin-orbit induced spin-interference pattern of ballistic electrons travelling along any regular polygon. It is found that the spin-interference depends strongly on the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit constants as well as on the sidelength and alignment of the polygon. We derive the analytical formulae for the limiting cases of either zero Dresselhaus or zero Rashba spin-orbit coupling, including the result obtained for a circle. We calculate the nonzero Dresselhaus and Rashba case numerically for the square, triangle, hexagon, and circle and discuss the observability of the spin-interference which can potentially be used to measure the Rashba and Dresselhaus coefficients.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0412609,
title = {Spin-orbit induced interference in polygon-structures},
author = {Marc J. van Veenhuizen and Takaaki Koga and Junsaku Nitta},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0412609},
year = {2013}
}