Electron-phonon interaction in a spin-orbit coupled quantum wire with a gap

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electron-phonon interactions affect resistivity and thermopower in a spin-orbit coupled quantum wire with a magnetic field-induced gap, revealing power-law dependencies on temperature and density.

Contribution

It provides new analytical and numerical insights into the temperature and density dependence of resistivity and thermopower considering Rashba spin-orbit interaction and electron-phonon mechanisms.

Findings

Resistivity scales as T^5 (DP) and T^3 (PE) in the Bloch-Gruneisen regime.

Thermopower scales as T^4 (DP) and T^2 (PE) in the same regime.

Power-law exponents depend on Rashba parameter and electron density.

Abstract

Interaction between electron and acoustic phonon in an in-plane magnetic field induced gapped quantum wire with Rashba spin-orbit interaction is studied. We calculate acoustic phonon limited resistivity ($\rho$) and phonon-drag thermopower ($S_g$) due to two well known mechanisms of electron-phonon interaction namely, deformation potential (DP) and piezoelectric (PE) scattering. In the so called Bloch-Gruneisen temperature limit both $\rho$ and $S_g$ depend on temperature ($T$) in a power law fashion i.e. $\rho$ or $S_g\sim T^{\nu_T}$. For resistivity, $\nu_T$ takes the value $5$ and $3$ due to DP and PE scattering respectively. On the other hand, $\nu_T$ is $4$ and $2$ due to DP and PE scattering, respectively for phonon-drag thermopower. Additionally, we find numerically that $\nu_T$ depends on Rashba parameter ($\alpha$) and electron density ($n$). The dependence of $\nu_T$ on $\alpha$ becomes more prominent at lower density. We also study the variations of $\rho$ and $S_g$ with carrier density in the Bloch-Gruneisen regime. Through a numerical analysis a similar power law dependence $\rho$ or $S_g\sim n^{-\nu_n}$ is established in which the effective exponent $\nu_n$ undergoes a smooth transition from a low density behavior to a high density behavior. At a higher density regime, $\nu_n$ matches excellently with the value obtained from theoretical arguments. Approximate analytical expressions for both resistivity and phonon-drag thermopower in the Bloch-Gruneisen regime are given.