Spin drift-diffusion for two-subband quantum wells

TL;DR

This paper derives a spin diffusion model for two-subband 2DEGs, revealing how intersubband scattering influences spin lifetimes and dynamics, with implications for spintronics control.

Contribution

It introduces a new spin diffusion equation for two-subbands 2DEGs, highlighting the role of intersubband scattering and its electric field tunability in spin dynamics.

Findings

Inter- and intra-subband scattering rates combine via Matthiessen's rule.

Large intersubband coupling reduces the effective diffusion constant.

Electric fields can control the intersubband scattering rate.

Abstract

Controlling the spin dynamics and spin lifetimes is one of the main challenges in spintronics. To this end, the study of the spin diffusion in two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) shows that when the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings (SOC) are balanced, a persistent spin helix regime arises. There, a striped spin pattern shows a long lifetime, limited only by the cubic Dresselhaus SOC, and its dynamics can be controlled by in-plane drift fields. Here, we derive a spin diffusion equation for non-degenerate two-subbands 2DEGs. We show that the intersubband scattering rate, which is defined by the overlap of the subband densities, enters as a new nob to control the spin dynamics, and can be controlled by electric fields, being maximum for symmetric quantum wells. We find that for large intersubband couplings the dynamics follow an effective diffusion matrix given by approximately half of the subband-averaged matrices. This extra 1/2 factor arises from Matthiessen's rule summing over the intra- and intersubband scattering rates, and leads to a reduced diffusion constant and larger spin lifetimes. We illustrate our findings with numerical solutions of the diffusion equation with parameters extracted from realistic Schr\"odinger-Poisson calculations.