Electronic and spin properties of Rashba billiards

Abstract

Ballistic electrons confined to a billiard and subject to spin--orbit coupling of the Rashba type are investigated, using both approximate semiclassical and exact quantum--mechanical methods. We focus on the low--energy part of the spectrum that has negative eigenvalues. When the spin precession length is smaller than the radius of the billiard, the low--lying energy eigenvalues turn out to be well described semiclassically. Corresponding eigenspinors are found to have a finite spin polarization in the direction perpendicular to the billiard plane.