N. A. Sinitsyn

Universal Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect

We describe a new effect in semiconductor spintronics that leads to dissipationless spin currents in paramagnetic spin-orbit coupled systems. We argue that in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system with substantial Rashba spin-orbit coupling, a spin current that flows perpendicular to the charge current is intrinsic. In the usual case where both spin-orbit split bands are occupied, the intrinsic spin-Hall conductivity has a universal value for zero quasiparticle spectral broadening.

Semiclassical Spin Transport in Spin-Orbit-Coupled Bands

Motivated by recent interest in novel spintronics effects, we develop a semiclassical theory of spin transport that is valid for spin-orbit coupled bands. Aside from the obvious convective term in which the average spin is transported at the wave packet group velocity, the spin current has additional contributions from the wave packets spin and torque dipole moments. Electric field corrections to the group velocity and carrier spin contribute to the convective term. Summing all terms we obtain an expression for the intrinsic spin-Hall conductivity of a hole-doped semiconductor, which agrees with the Kubo formula prediction for the same quantity. We discuss the calculation of spin accumulation, which illustrates the importance of the torque dipole near the boundary of the system.

Spin Hall and spin-diagonal conductivity in the presence of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling

We investigate the spin-current linear response conductivity tensor to an electric field in a paramagnetic two dimensonal electron gas with both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in the weak scattering regime. In the ususal case where both spin-orbit-split bands are occupied, we find that the spin-Hall conductivity depends only on the sign of the difference in magnitude of the Rashba and Dresselhaus coupling strengths except within a narrow window where both coupling strengths are equal. We also find a new effect in which a spin current is generated in the direction of the driving field whenever the Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling is nonzero. We discuss experimental implications of this finding taking into account the finite mobility and typical parameters of current samples and possible experimental set ups for its detection.

Fast noise in the Landau-Zener theory

We study the influence of a fast noise on Landau-Zener transitions. We demonstrate that a fast colored noise much weaker than the conventional white noise can produce transitions itself or can change substantially the Landau-Zener transition probabilities. In the limit of fast colored or strong white noise we derive asymptotically exact formulas for transition probabilities and study the time evolution of a spin coupled to the noise and a sweeping magnetic field.

Landau-Zener transitions in a linear chain

We present an exact asymptotic solution for electron transition amplitudes in an infinite linear chain driven by an external time-dependent electric field. This solution extends the Landau-Zener theory for the case of an infinite number of states in the discrete spectrum. In addition to the transition amplitudes we calculate the effective diffusion constant.

Spin transitions in time-dependent regular and random magnetic fields

(Received 30 September 2003; published 19 March 2004) We study the transition between Zeeman levels of an arbitrary spin placed into a regular time-dependent magnetic field and a random field with the Gaussian distribution. One component of the regular field changes its sign at some moment of time, whereas another component does not change substantially. The noise is assumed to be fast. In this assumption we find analytically the ensemble average of the spin density matrix and its fluctuations.

Anomalous Hall effect in a two-dimensional electron gas

The anomalous Hall effect in a magnetic two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling is studied within the Kubo-Streda formalism in the presence of pointlike potential impurities. We find that all contributions to the anomalous Hall conductivity vanish to leading order in disorder strength when both chiral subbands are occupied. In the situation that only the majority subband is occupied, all terms are finite in the weak scattering limit and the total anomalous Hall conductivity is dominated by skew scattering. We compare our results to previous treatments and resolve some of the discrepancies present in the literature.

Absence of skew scattering in two-dimensional systems : Testing the origins of the anomalous hall effect

We study the anomalous Hall conductivity in spin-polarized, asymmetrically confined two-dimensional electron and hole systems, taking into account the intrinsic, side-jump, and skew-scattering contributions to the transport. We find that the skew scattering, principally responsible for the extrinsic contribution to the anomalous Hall effect, vanishes for the two-dimensional electron system if both chiral Rashba subbands are partially occupied, and vanishes always for the two-dimensional hole gas studied here, regardless of the band filling. Our prediction can be tested with the proposed coplanar two-dimensional electron-hole gas device and can be used as a benchmark to understand the crossover from the intrinsic to the extrinsic anomalous Hall effect.