Current induced local spin polarization due to the spin-orbit coupling in a two dimensional narrow strip

Abstract

The current induced local spin polarization due to weak Rashba spin-orbit coupling in narrow strip is studied. In the presence of longitudinal charge current, local spin polarizations appear in the sample. The spin polarization perpendicular to the plane has opposite sign near the two edges. The in-plane spin polarization in the direction perpendicular to the sample edges also appears, but does not change sign across the sample. From our scaling analysis based on increasing the strip width, the out-of-plane spin polarization is important mainly in a system of mesoscopic size, and thus appears not to be associated with the spin-Hall effect in bulk samples.