Temperature-dependent transport and spin accumulation in a quantum wire with Rashba spin-orbit interaction

We study the theory of temperature-dependent electron transport, spin polarization, and spin accumulation in a Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI) quantum wire connected nonadiabatically to two normal conductor electrode leads. The influence of both the wire-lead connection and the RSOI on the electron transport is treated analytically by means of a scattering matrix technique and by using an effective free-electron approximation. Through analytical analysis and numerical examples, we demonstrate a simple way to design a sensitive spin-transfer switch that operates without applying any external magnetic fields or attaching ferromagnetic contacts. We also demonstrate that the antisymmetry of the spin accumulation can be destroyed slightly by the coupling between the leads and the wire. Moreover, temperature can weaken the polarization and smear out the oscillations in the spin accumulation.

Electron transport properties of In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As quantum wells with two occupied subbands

Magnetotransport properties of two-dimensional electron gas have been investigated for three In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As quantum well samples having two occupied subbands with different well widths. When the intersubband scattering is considered, we have obtained the subband density, transport scattering time, quantum scattering time and intersubband scattering time, respectively, by analyzing the result of fast Fourier transform of the first derivative of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations. It is found that the main scattering mechanism is due to small-angle scattering, such as ionized impurity scattering, for the first subband electrons.

Magnetization of two-dimensional heavy holes with boundaries in a perpendicular magnetic field

The magnetisation of heavy holes in III-V semiconductor quantum wells with Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in an external perpendicular magnetic field is studied theoretically. We concentrate on the effects on the magnetisation induced by the system boundary, the Rashba SOC and the temperature. It is found that the sawtooth-like de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) oscillations of the magnetisation will change dramatically in the presence of such three factors. Especially, the effects of the edge states and Rashba SOC on the magnetisation are more evident when the magnetic field is smaller. The oscillation center will shift when the boundary effect is considered and the Rashba SOC will bring beating patterns to the dHvA oscillations. These effects on the dHvA oscillations are preferably observed at low temperatures. With increasing temperature, the dHvA oscillations turn to be blurred and eventually disappear.

Quantum-confined Stark effect and built-in dipole moment in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots

Quantum-confined Stark effect and built-in dipole moment in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs), which are grown at relative low temperature (460degreesC) and embedded in GaAs p-i-n structure, have been studied by dc-biased electroreflectance. Franz-Keldysh oscillations from the undoped GaAs layer are used to determine the electric field under various bias voltages. Stark shift of -34 meV for the ground-state interband transition of the QDs is observed when the electric field increases from 105 to 308 kV/cm. The separation of the electron and hole states in the growth direction of 0.4 nm, corresponding to the built-in dipole moment of 6.4x10(-29) C m, is determined. It is found that the electron state lies above that of the hole, which is the same as that predicted by theoretical calculations for ideal pyramidal InAs QDs. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.

Spin states and persistent currents in mesoscopic rings: Spin-orbit interactions

We investigate theoretically electron spin states in one-dimensional and two-dimensional (2D) hard-wall mesoscopic rings in the presence of both the Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI) and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction (DSOI) in a perpendicular magnetic field. The Hamiltonian of the RSOI alone is mathematically equivalent to that of the DSOI alone using an SU(2) spin rotation transformation. Our theoretical results show that the interplay between the RSOI and DSOI results in an effective periodic potential, which consequently leads to gaps in the energy spectrum. This periodic potential also weakens and smoothens the oscillations of the persistent charge current and spin current and results in the localization of electrons. For a 2D ring with a finite width, higher radial modes destroy the periodic oscillations of persistent currents.

A comparison between contactless electroreflectance and photoreflectance spectra from n-doped GaAs on a semi-insulating GaAs substrate

Contactless electroreflectance (CER) and photoreflectance (PR) measurements have been performed on samples with the structure of an n-doped GaAs epitaxial layer on a semi- insulating GaAs substrate. Modulated reflectance signals from the n-GaAs surface and those from the n-GaAs/SI-GaAs interface are superposed in PR spectra. For the case of CER measurement, however, Franz-Keldysh oscillations (FKOs) from the interface, which are observed in PR spectra, cannot be detected. This discrepancy is attributed to different modulation mechanisms of CER and PR. In CER experiments, the electric field modulation cannot be added to the interfacial electric field because of the effective screening by the fast response of carriers across the interface. FKOs from the interface without any perturbation by the surface signals are extracted by subtracting CER spectra from PR spectra.

Charge-density and spin-density excitations in a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

We study theoretically the charge-density and spin-density excitations in a two-dimensional electron gas in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field and a Rashba type spin-orbit coupling. The dispersion and the corresponding intensity of excitations in the vicinity of cyclotron resonance frequency are calculated within the framework of random phase approximation. The dependence of excitation dispersion on various system parameters, i.e., the Rashba spin-orbit interaction strength, the electron density, the Zeeman spin splitting, and the Coulomb interaction strength is investigated.

Distributed mode coupling in microring channel drop filters

The authors present the observation of wide transmission dips in a microring channel drop filter by two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulation. The authors show that distributed mode coupling between the input waveguide and the resonator results in the oscillations of the coupling efficiency and the envelope of transmission spectra with wavelength. The critical coupling as the light just passing through the coupling region is important for optimizing related devices. If the width of the input waveguide is different from that of the ring resonator, the phenomenon can be greatly reduced. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

A complex Fourier transformation study of the contactless electroreflectance of an undoped-n(+) GaAs structure

Complex Fourier transformation (CFT) has been employed to analyse contactless electroreflectance (CER) spectra from an undoped-n(+) GaAs structure with various ac modulations and dc bias voltages. The CFT spectra of CER have been compared with those of photoreflectance (PR). It has been found that the CER non-flat modulation is between the built-in electric field and a larger electric field which increases with the modulation voltage. The result has been explained by the screening of the applied modulation electric field in one of the two half modulation cycles and the trapping of electrons in surface states in the other half modulation cycle. The dc bias does not change the CER spectra, hence their CFT spectra. This is because of the screening of the applied dc bias electric field.

Spectral dependence of spin photocurrent and current-induced spin polarization in an InGaAs/InAlAs two-dimensional electron gas

The converse effects of spin photocurrent and current induced spin polarization are experimentally demonstrated in a two-dimensional electron gas system with Rashba spin splitting. Their consistency with the strength of the Rashba coupling as measured for the same system from beating of the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations reveals a unified picture for the spin photocurrent, current-induced spin-polarization, and spin-orbit coupling. In addition, the observed spectral inversion of the spin photocurrent indicates a system with dominating structure inversion asymmetry.

Magneto-transport characteristics of two-dimensional electron gas for Si delta-doped InAlAs/InGaAs single quantum well

Magneto-transport measurements have been carried out on a Si heavily delta-doped In0.52Al0.48As/In(0.53)G(0.47)As single quantum well in the temperature range between 1.5 and 60 K under magnetic field up to 10 T. We studied the Shubnikov-de Haas(SdH) effect and the Hall effect for the In0.52Al0.48As/In(0.53)G(0.47)As single quantum well occupied by two subbands, and have obtained the electron concentration, mobility, effective mass and energy levels respectively. The electron concentrations of the two subbands derived from mobility spectrum combined with multi-carrier fitting analysis are well consistent with the result from the SdH oscillation. From fast Fourier transform analysis for d(2)rho/dB(2)-1/B, it is observed that there is a frequency of f(1)-f(2) insensitive to the temperature, besides the frequencies f(1), f(2) for the two subbands and the frequency doubling 2f(1), both dependent on the temperature. This is because That the electrons occupying the two different subbands almost have the same effective mass in the quantum well and the magneto-intersubband scattering between the two subbands is strong.

Study of persistent photoconductivity and subband electronic properties of the two-dimensional electron gas in modulation doped GaAs/AlGaAs structure

We obtained the high mobility Of mu(2K) = 1.78 x 10(6) cm(2)/V . s in Si-doped GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) structures. After the sample was illuminated by a light-emitting diode in magnetic fields up to 6 T at T = 2K, we did observe the persistent photoconductivity effect and the electron density increased obviously. The electronic properties of 2DEG have been studied by Quantum-Hall-effect and Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillation measurements. We found that the electron concentrations of two subbands increase simultaneity with the increasing total electron concentration, and the electron mobility also increases obviously after being illuminated. At the same time, we also found that the electronic quantum lifetime becomes shorter, and a theoretical explunation is given through the widths of integral quantum Hall plateaus.

Electron transport properties of MM-HEMT with varied channel indium contents

Transport properties of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) are crucial to metamorphic high-electron-mobility transistors (MM-HEMT). We have investigated the variations of subband electron mobility and concentration versus temperature from Shubnikov-de Hass oscillations., and variable temperature Hall measurements. The results indicate that the electrical performance is the best when the In content is 0.65 in the channel for MM-HEMT. When the In content exceeds 0.65, a large lattice mismatch will cause dislocations and result in the decrease of mobility and the fall of performance in materials and devices.

Electronic properties of sulfur passivated undoped-n(+) type GaAs surface studied by photoreflectance

Photoreflectance (PR) has been used to study surface electronic properties (electric field, Fermi level pinning, and density of surface states) of undoped-n(+) (UN+) GaAs treated in the solution of ammonium sulfide in isopropanol. Complex Fourier transformation (CFT) of PR spectra from passivated surface shows that the sulfur overlay on GaAs surface makes no contribution to Franz-Keldysh oscillations (FKOs). The barrier height measured by PR is derived from surface states directly, rather than the total barrier height, which includes the potentials derived from Ga-S and As-S dipole layers. Comparing with native oxidated surface, the passivation leads to 80 meV movement of surface Fermi level towards the conduction band minimum, and reduction by more than one order in density of surface states. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Quantum information processing with superconducting qubits in a microwave field

We investigate the quantum dynamics of a Cooper-pair box with a superconducting loop in the presence of a nonclassical microwave field. We demonstrate the existence of Rabi oscillations for both single- and multiphoton processes and, moreover, we propose a new quantum computing scheme (including one-bit and conditional two-bit gates) based on Josephson qubits coupled through microwaves.