Nonvanishing anisotropic magnetoresistance in Rashba two-dimensional electron systems with nonmagnetic disorders

Abstract

We study anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) in a spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling and nonmagnetic disorder collision. We show that AMR exists, arising from the combined effect of in-plane magnetization, spin-orbit coupling, and nonmagnetic remote disorder scattering. Further, numerical evaluation demonstrates that the smoothness of the remote disorder can strongly affect AMR, and this AMR is sensitive to the electron density. Large magnitude of AMR ($\approx24%$) is obtained for low density system with strong spin-orbit splitting.