Vanishing of the Dissipationless Spin Hall Effect in a Diffusive Two-Dimensional Electron Gas with Spin-Orbit Coupling

Abstract

We propose a nonequilibrium Green's function approach to study the spin-Hall effect in a two-dimensional electron system with both the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings. By taking into account the long-range electron-impurity scattering, the derived kinetic equations are solved numerically. It is found the vanishing of the total zero-temperature dissipationless spin-Hall effect, contributing from the intrinsic and disorder-mediated processes. This result has been examined in the wide ranges of spin-orbit coupling constants and electron density.