Predicted signatures of the intrinsic spin Hall effect in closed systems

TL;DR

This paper predicts an intrinsic spin Hall effect in closed 2D electron systems with spin-orbit interaction, suggesting it can be observed via far infrared absorption without external driving fields.

Contribution

It analytically demonstrates that spin-orbit interaction creates a transverse effective electric field, inherent to the material, and proposes an experiment to detect this effect in nanostructures.

Findings

Spin-orbit interaction acts as a transverse effective electric field.

The effect is inherent and does not require external fields.

Proposed experiment to observe the effect via infrared absorption.

Abstract

We study a two-dimensional electron system in the presence of spin-orbit interaction. It is shown analytically that the spin-orbit interaction acts as a transversal effective electric field, whose orientation depends on the sign of the $\hat{z}$-axis spin projection. This effect doesn't require any driving external field and is inherent to the spin-orbit interactions present in semiconductor materials. Therefore, it should manifest in both closed and open systems. It is proposed an experiment to observe the intrinsic spin Hall effect in the far infrared absorption of an asymmetric semiconductor nanostructure.