Spontaneous Emergence of Persistent Spin Helix from Homogeneous Spin Polarization

Abstract

We demonstrate that a homogeneous spin polarization in one-dimensional structures of finite length in the presence of Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit coupling decays spontaneously toward a persistent spin helix. The analysis of formation of spin helical state is presented within a novel approach based on a mapping of spin drift-diffusion equations into a heat equation for a complex field. Such a strikingly different and simple method allows generating robust spin structures whose properties can be tuned by the strength of the spin orbit interaction and/or structure's length. We generalize our results for two-dimensional case predicting formation of persistent spin helix in two-dimensional channels from homogeneous spin polarization.