Phonon-drag thermopower and hot-electron energy-loss rate in a Rashba spin-orbit coupled two-dimensional electron system

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of how Rashba spin-orbit coupling influences phonon-drag thermopower and hot-electron energy-loss in a 2D electron system, revealing suppressed temperature dependence exponents.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for understanding the impact of Rashba spin-orbit interaction on thermoelectric and energy-loss properties in 2DES.

Findings

Rashba coupling suppresses the temperature dependence exponents.

The study quantifies the effect of spin-orbit interaction on thermopower.

Energy-loss rate is significantly affected by Rashba spin-orbit coupling.

Abstract

We theoretically study phonon-drag contribution to the thermoelectric power and hot-electron energy-loss rate in a Rashba spin-orbit coupled two-dimensional electron system (2DES) in the Bloch-Gruneisen (BG) regime. We assume that electrons interact with longitudinal acoustic phonons through deformation potential and with both longitudinal and transverse acoustic phonons through piezoelectric potential. Effect of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction on magnitude and temperature dependence of the phonon-drag thermoelectric power and hot-electron energy-loss rate are discussed. We numerically extract the exponent of temperature dependence of the phonon-drag thermopower and the energy-loss rate. We find the exponents are strongly suppressed due to the presence of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling.