Spin polarization in a T-shape conductor induced by strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling

TL;DR

This paper numerically demonstrates that strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling in a T-shaped conductor can induce nearly 100% spin polarization of current, with implications for spintronic device design.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical analysis of spin polarization in a T-shaped conductor with strong Rashba coupling, including effects of disorder and multi-channel transport.

Findings

Spin polarization reaches nearly 100% at conductance close to e^2/h.

Electrons with opposite spins are deflected into opposite terminals due to spin-dependent Lorentz force.

Disorder effects and multi-channel transport are analyzed in relation to experimental conditions.

Abstract

We investigate numerically the spin polarization of the current in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction in a T-shaped conductor proposed by A.A. Kiselev and K.W. Kim (Appl. Phys. Lett. {\bf 78} 775 (2001)). The recursive Green function method is used to calculate the three terminal spin dependent transmission probabilities. We focus on single-channel transport and show that the spin polarization becomes nearly 100 % with a conductance close to $e^{2}/h$ for sufficiently strong spin-orbit coupling. This is interpreted by the fact that electrons with opposite spin states are deflected into an opposite terminal by the spin dependent Lorentz force. The influence of the disorder on the predicted effect is also discussed. Cases for multi-channel transport are studied in connection with experiments.