Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 38: Poster Session Transport

TT 38.19: Poster

Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 14:00–18:00, P3

Spin-polarizing Beam Splitter Nanodevice — •Dietrich G. Rothe and Ewelina M. Hankiewicz — Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Würzburg, Germany

We present numerical calculations of a beam splitter device which can generate a spin-polarized current using the principle of birefringence at an interface of regions with different Rashba spin-orbit couplings. For our calculations we employ the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism, and make use of two-band as well as four-band models of the lowest subbands of the HgCdTe quantum wells. We find that the physics is governed by the interplay between Rashba and Dirac spin-orbit terms (the linear in k terms), where the latter leads to a spin polarization due to the confinement. We find that in the 4-band model, spin polarization can be measured by a helicity operator. When the interface with different Rashba SO regions is tilted at an angle well above the angle of total reflection, good spin polarization is achieved.