Oblique Reflection of Electrons from a Potential Barrier in Heterostructures

• Authors: P. Pfeffer , W. Zawadzki
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Reflection of electrons from a potential barrier in heterostructures is described. An electric field of the barrier causes spin splitting of electron energies via the spin-orbit interaction and its form is calculated in the three-level k·p model for a nontrivial case of unbound electrons. It is shown that if the potential barrier is the only source of the spin-orbit interaction, the spin-flip electron reflections are not possible. However, there appear two unexpected possibilities related to the spin-orbit interaction: (a) non-attenuated electron propagation in the barrier whose height exceeds the energies of incoming electrons, (b) total reflection of electrons whose energies exceed barrier's height. It is indicated that the system can serve as a source of spin-polarized electron beams.

Keywords

EN

71.70.Ej; 73.22.Dj; 73.40.-c; 75.76.+j

Discipline

• 73.40.-c: Electronic transport in interface structures
• 73.22.Dj: Single particle states
• 75.76.+j: Spin transport effects(for devices exploiting spin polarized transport, see 85.75.Hh, 85.75.Mm, and 85.75.Ss)
• 71.70.Ej: Spin-orbit coupling, Zeeman and Stark splitting, Jahn-Teller effect

• Journal: Acta Physica Polonica A
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 126
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 820-827

Dates

published

2014-08

received

2014-08-22

Contributors

author

P. Pfeffer

• Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Lotników 32/46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland

author

W. Zawadzki

• Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Lotników 32/46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland

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Identifiers

DOI

10.12693/APhysPolA.126.820