Direct detection of the relative strength of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction: Utilizing the SU(2) symmetry

We propose a simple method to detect the relative strength of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions in quantum wells (QWs) without relying on the directional-dependent physical quantities. This method utilizes the two different critical gate voltages that leading to the remarkable signals of SU(2) symmetry, which happens to reflect the intrinsic-structure-inversion asymmetry of the QW. We support our proposal by the numerical calculation of in-plane relaxation times based on the self-consistent eight-band Kane model. We find that the two different critical gate voltages leading to the maximum spin-relaxation times [one effect of the SU(2) symmetry] can simply determine the ratio of the coefficients of Rashba and Dresselhaus terms. Our proposal can also be generalized to extract the relative strengths of the spin-orbit interactions in quantum-wire and quantum-dot structures.

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This work is supported by the NSFC under Grants No. 60525405 and No. 10874175, and National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Grant No. 2010CB933700).

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This work is supported by the NSFC under Grants No. 60525405 and No. 10874175, and National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Grant No. 2010CB933700).