Two-band description of the strong `spin'-orbit coupled one-dimensional hole gas in a cylindrical Ge nanowire

TL;DR

This paper derives an effective two-band Hamiltonian to describe the low-energy physics of a strong spin-orbit coupled one-dimensional hole gas in a cylindrical Ge nanowire under various magnetic field orientations, validated by numerical and analytical methods.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified two-band model for the hole gas in Ge nanowires that accurately captures the effects of strong spin-orbit coupling and magnetic fields, extending previous models.

Findings

The two-band Hamiltonian accurately describes the system under purely longitudinal or transverse magnetic fields.

Explicit magnetic field-dependent expressions for spin-orbit coupling and g-factor are provided.

The two-band approximation remains valid for arbitrary magnetic field directions.

Abstract

The low-energy effective Hamiltonian of the strong `spin'-orbit coupled one-dimensional hole gas in a cylindrical Ge nanowire in the presence of a strong magnetic field is studied both numerically and analytically. Basing on the Luttinger-Kohn Hamiltonian in the spherical approximation, we show this strong `spin'-orbit coupled one-dimensional hole gas can be accurately described by an effective two-band Hamiltonian $H^{\rm ef}=\hbar^{2}k^{2}_{z}/(2m^{*}_{h})+\alpha\sigma^{x}k_{z}+g^{*}_{h}\mu_{B}B\sigma^{z}/2$, as long as the magnetic field is purely longitudinal or purely transverse. The explicit magnetic field dependent expressions of the `spin'-orbit coupling $\alpha\equiv\alpha(B)$ and the effective $g$-factor $g^{*}_{h}\equiv\,g^{*}_{h}(B)$ are given. When the magnetic field is applied in an arbitrary direction, the two-band Hamiltonian description is still a good approximation.