Effect of boundary scattering on spin-hall effect

Abstract

The spin dependent reflection in quasi-two-dimensional electron gas from an impenetrable barrier in presence of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling is analyzed in detail. It is shown that due to spin-orbit effects the reflected beam split in two beams gives rise to multiple reflection analogous to phenomena birefringence. The interplay between Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling gives rise to anisotropy in Fermi energy surface and a non-zero net spin-polarized current oscillating with two frequencies for all the values of incident angle except at $45^{o}$ when averaged over all components of reflected beam. It is also shown that in over critical region, all the three polarization components as well as net polarization has non-zero values and are exponentially decaying as distance from the barrier increases which in turns spin-accumulation near the barrier is an important consequence of spin-hall effect.