Spin-orbit induced interference in polygon-structures

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how spin-orbit interactions influence electron interference patterns in polygonal structures, providing analytical and numerical results that could help measure spin-orbit coupling strengths.

Contribution

It derives analytical formulas for spin-interference in polygons with zero Rashba or Dresselhaus coupling and numerically explores cases with both present, linking interference patterns to spin-orbit parameters.

Findings

Spin-interference depends on spin-orbit constants and polygon geometry.

Analytical solutions are provided for limiting cases.

Numerical results for various polygons show potential for measuring spin-orbit coefficients.

Abstract

We investigate the spin-orbit induced spin-interference pattern of ballistic electrons travelling along any regular polygon. It is found that the spin-interference depends strongly on the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit constants as well as on the sidelength and alignment of the polygon. We derive the analytical formulae for the limiting cases of either zero Dresselhaus or zero Rashba spin-orbit coupling, including the result obtained for a circle. We calculate the nonzero Dresselhaus and Rashba case numerically for the square, triangle, hexagon, and circle and discuss the observability of the spin-interference which can potentially be used to measure the Rashba and Dresselhaus coefficients.