Diffuse transport and spin accumulation in a Rashba two-dimensional electron gas

Abstract

The Rashba Hamiltonian describes the splitting of the conduction band as a result of spin-orbit coupling in the presence of an asymmetric confinement potential and is commonly used to model the electronic structure of confined narrow-gap semiconductors. Due to the mixing of spin states some care has to be exercised in the calculation of transport properties. We derive the diffusive conductance tensor for a disordered two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit interaction and show that the applied bias induces a spin accumulation, but that the electric current is not spin-polarized.