We perform an all-optical spin-dynamic measurement of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction in (110)-oriented GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. The crystallographic direction of quantum confinement allows us to disentangle the contributions to spin-orbit coupling from the structural inversion asymmetry (Rashba term) and the bulk inversion asymmetry. We observe an unexpected temperature dependence of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction strength that signifies the importance of the usually neglected higher-order terms of the Rashba coupling.
@article{arxiv.0707.4493,
title = {Temperature Dependence of Rashba Spin-orbit Coupling in Quantum Wells},
author = {P. S. Eldridge and W. J. H. Leyland and P. G. Lagoudakis and O. Z. Karimov and M. Henini and D. Taylor and R. T. Phillips and R. T. Harley},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.4493},
year = {2007}
}