Interference of heavy holes in an Aharonov-Bohm ring

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heavy holes with cubic spin-orbit coupling affect quantum interference in a ring, revealing signatures that distinguish different types of spin-orbit interactions through conductance measurements.

Contribution

It demonstrates how cubic spin-orbit coupling influences Aharonov-Bohm oscillations and provides a method to identify the dominant spin-orbit interaction type via polarization-resolved conductance.

Findings

Polarization-resolved conductance indicates the dominant spin-orbit coupling type.

Cubic spin-orbit coupling produces a four-peak structure in Aharonov-Bohm oscillations.

Distinguishing Dresselhaus and Rashba interactions through conductance signatures.

Abstract

We study the coherent transport of heavy holes through a one-dimensional ring in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. Spin-orbit interaction of holes, cubic in the in-plane components of momentum, gives rise to an angular momentum dependent spin texture of the eigenstates and influences transport. We analyze the dependence of the resulting differential conductance of the ring on hole polarization of the leads and the signature of the textures in the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations when the ring is in a perpendicular magnetic field. We find that the polarization-resolved conductance reveals whether the dominant spin-orbit coupling is of Dresselhaus or Rashba type, and that the cubic spin-orbit coupling can be distinguished from the conventional linear coupling by observing the four-peak structure in the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations.