Effects of spin-orbit interaction and magnetic field on the electron transport in quasi-1D ferromagnetic/semiconductor/ferromagnetic system
Li Bo-Zanga, Li Yu-Xianb
a Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China; b Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China； Department of Physics, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050016, China
Abstract Based on the transfer matrix method, we investigate the effects of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and magnetic field on the electron transport in a quasi one-dimensional FM/S/FM system, where FM and S represent the ferromagnetic metal and semiconductor, respectively. The results show that the oscillating scope of the transmission increases with the magnetic field increasing. In the antiferromagnetic alignment, the spin-up and spin-down electrons have the same contribution to the transmission even if a magnetic field is applied. In the ferromagnetic alignment, however, at certain strengths of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and of magnetic field, the transmission coefficient for spin-up electrons is bigger than that for spin-down electrons, and the sign of the spin polarization changes, which is opposite to that in the absence of the magnetic field.
Received: 22 October 2004
Revised: 06 January 2005
Published: 19 May 2005
Li Bo-Zang, Li Yu-Xian Effects of spin-orbit interaction and magnetic field on the electron transport in quasi-1D ferromagnetic/semiconductor/ferromagnetic system 2005 Chin. Phys. 14 1021
