Spin-dependent Klein tunneling in graphene: Role of Rashba spin-orbit coupling

Ming-Hao Liu (劉明豪), Jan Bundesmann, and Klaus Richter
Phys. Rev. B 85, 085406 – Published 3 February 2012

Abstract

Within an effective Dirac theory the low-energy dispersions of monolayer graphene in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling and spin-degenerate bilayer graphene are described by formally identical expressions. We explore implications of this correspondence for transport by choosing chiral tunneling through pn and pnpjunctions as a concrete example. A real-space Green's function formalism based on a tight-binding model is adopted to perform the ballistic transport calculations, which cover and confirm previous theoretical results based on the Dirac theory. Chiral tunneling in monolayer graphene in the presence of Rashba coupling is shown to indeed behave like in bilayer graphene. Combined effects of a forbidden normal transmission and spin separation are observed within the single-band np transmission regime. The former comes from real-spin conservation, in analogy with pseudospin conservation in bilayer graphene, while the latter arises from the intrinsic spin-Hall mechanism of the Rashba coupling.

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  • Received 2 December 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.085406

©2012 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Ming-Hao Liu (劉明豪), Jan Bundesmann, and Klaus Richter

  • Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany

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Issue

Vol. 85, Iss. 8 — 15 February 2012

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