2016/03/31 by Michael Kammermeier, Paul Wenk, John Schliemann +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Coupling (piping) #Dephasing #Electron #Magnetic field #Magnetic properties of thin films #Magnetoresistance #Materials science #Nanowire #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Scattering #Semiconductor #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin–orbit interaction #Weak localization #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.93.205306
published as Phys. Rev. B 93, 205306 (2016) · 17 pages, 9 figures
openalex publication_date 2016/05/19 · arxiv created 2016/12/08 · arxiv updated 2016/12/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Electrons in semiconductor nanowires can be radially confined to form a thin tubular conductive channel a few nanometers below the surface. The peculiar potential landscape, which can be either a result of Fermi level pinning due to surface reconstruction or band mismatch at the heterointerface in core/shell nanowires, gives rise to both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling (SOC). By utilizing k\ensuremath⋅p theory, the authors have developed models for the SOC in nanowires with zinc-blende crystal structure for various nanowire growth directions. Taking advantage of these models, the weak (anti)localization correction \mathrm\ensuremathΔ\phantom\rule00ex\ensuremathσ to the static Drude conductivity is derived. Finally, the theory is fitted to experimental data of an undoped <111> InAs nanowire device, which exhibits a gate-controlled crossover from positive to negative magnetoconductivity. Thereby, the authors extract transport parameters and quantify the distinct types of SOC individually. The close agreement of theory and experiment suggests that the model provides reliable information and underlines the relevance of Dresselhaus SOC, which was previously often considered absent.