Magnetoconductivity in the presence of Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit interaction

TL;DR

This paper derives a simple analytic formula for magnetoconductivity in 2D systems with Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit interaction, elucidating different regimes of spin relaxation and precession effects.

Contribution

It provides a new closed-form expression for magnetoconductivity that simplifies data analysis and extraction of spin-orbit coupling strength in two-dimensional materials.

Findings

At low fields, D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation dominates.

At high fields, spin precession suppresses relaxation and adds a Berry phase.

The formula enables easy fitting of experimental data.

Abstract

A closed-form analytic formula for the magnetoconductivity in the diffusive regime is derived in the presence of Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit interaction in two dimensions. It is shown that at low fields B << B_{so}, where B_{so} is the characteristic field associated with spin precession, D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism leads to spin relaxation, while for B >> B_{so} spin relaxation is suppressed and the resulting spin precession contributes a Berry phase-like spin phase to the magnetoconductivity. The relative simplicity of the formula greatly facilitates data fitting, allowing for the strength of the spin-orbit coupling to be easily extracted.