Fano-Rashba effect in a quantum wire

TL;DR

This paper predicts Fano resonances in a quantum wire caused by Rashba spin-orbit coupling, revealing how local spin-orbit interaction creates bound states that influence conductance.

Contribution

It introduces the Fano-Rashba effect in quantum wires and models how Rashba coupling induces bound states affecting transport properties.

Findings

Fano lineshapes appear in conductance due to Rashba coupling.

Rashba acts as an attractive impurity in 1D channels.

Bound states couple to conduction states, causing conductance dips.

Abstract

We predict the occurrence of Fano lineshapes in a semiconductor quantum wire with local spin-orbit (Rashba) coupling. We show that the Rashba interaction acts in a strictly one dimensional channel as an attractive impurity, leading to the formation of purely bound states. In a quasi-one dimensional system these bound states couple to the conduction ones through the Rashba intersubband mixing, giving rise to pronounced dips in the linear conductance plateaus. We give exact numerical results and propose an approximate model capturing the main ingredients of the effect.