Manifestation of the spin-Hall effect through transport measurements in the mesoscopic regime

Abstract

We study theoretically the manifestation of the spin-Hall effect in a two-dimensional electronic system with Rashba spin-orbit coupling via dc-transport measurements in realistic mesoscopic H-shape structures. The Landauer-Buttiker formalism is used to model samples with mobilities and Rashba coupling strengths of current experiments and to demonstrate the appearance of a measurable Rashba-coupling dependent voltage. This type of measurement requires only metal contacts, i.e., no magnetic elements are present. We also confirm the robustness of the intrinsic spin-Hall effect against disorder in the mesoscopic metallic regime in agreement with results of exact diagonalization studies in the bulk.