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arXiv · cond-mat/0306521

Experimental Separation of Rashba and Dresselhaus Spin-Splittings in Semiconductor Quantum Wells

Abstract

The relative strengths of Rashba and Dresselhaus terms describing the spin-orbit coupling in semiconductor quantum well (QW) structures are extracted from photocurrent measurements on n-type InAs QWs containing a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). This novel technique makes use of the angular distribution of the spin-galvanic effect at certain directions of spin orientation in the plane of a QW. The ratio of the relevant Rashba and Dresselhaus coefficients can be deduced directly from experiment and does not relay on theoretically obtained quantities. Thus our experiments open a new way to determine the different contributions to spin-orbit coupling.

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S. D. Ganichev, V. V. Bel'kov, L. E. Golub, E. L. Ivchenko, Petra Schneider, S. Giglberger, J. Eroms, J. DeBoeck, G. Borghs, W. Wegscheider, D. Weiss, W. Prettl. 2003-06-20. Experimental Separation of Rashba and Dresselhaus Spin-Splittings in Semiconductor Quantum Wells. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.92.256601

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