Curvature-induced Rashba spin-orbit interaction in strain-driven nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper derives a reduced Schrödinger equation showing how curvature and strain in nanostructures induce a Rashba-like spin-orbit interaction, enhancing spin effects in curved quantum wires.

Contribution

It introduces a method to derive effective spin-orbit interactions in low-dimensional strained nanostructures considering curvature effects.

Findings

Curvature induces a Rashba-like spin-orbit interaction.

Enhanced spin-orbit effects in curved quantum wires.

Method applicable to various low-dimensional nanostructures.

Abstract

We derive the effective dimensionally reduced Schr\"odinger equation with spin-orbit interaction in low-dimensional electronic strain driven nanostructures. A method of adiabatic separation among fast normal quantum degrees of freedom and slow tangential quantum degrees of freedom is used to show the emergence of a strain-induced Rashba-like spin-orbit interaction (SOI). By applying this analysis to one-dimensional curved quantum wires we demonstrate that the curvature-induced Rashba SOI leads to enhanced spin-orbit effects.