Spin Hall effect due to intersubband-induced spin-orbit interaction in symmetric quantum wells

Minchul Lee, Marco O. Hachiya, E. Bernardes, J. Carlos Egues, and Daniel Loss
Phys. Rev. B 80, 155314 – Published 12 October 2009

Abstract

We investigate the intrinsic spin Hall effect in two-dimensional electron gases in quantum wells with two subbands, where a new intersubband-induced spin-orbit coupling is operative. The bulk spin Hall conductivity σxyz is calculated in the ballistic limit within the standard Kubo formalism in the presence of a magnetic field B and is found to remain finite in the B=0 limit, as long as only the lowest subband is occupied. Our calculated σxyz exhibits a nonmonotonic behavior and can change its sign as the Fermi energy (the carrier areal density n2D) is varied between the subband edges. We determine the magnitude of σxyz for realistic InSb quantum wells by performing a self-consistent calculation of the intersubband-induced spin-orbit coupling.

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  • Received 24 July 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.80.155314

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Minchul Lee1, Marco O. Hachiya2, E. Bernardes2, J. Carlos Egues2,3, and Daniel Loss3

  • 1Department of Applied Physics, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 449-701, Korea
  • 2Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, 13560-970 São Carlos, SP, Brazil
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Basel, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland

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Issue

Vol. 80, Iss. 15 — 15 October 2009

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