The Role of Spins in Low Dimensional Structures

Abstract

The study of the spin orbit interactions has gained a great attention in low dimensional structures, The three main types of spin orbit interactions are conventional, Dresselhaus and Rashba interactions. The conventional interactions result naturally due to the motion of the electron in its orbit. This motion, in turn, causes a coupling between the electron spin and its angular momentum, The Dresselhaus interactions arise in crystals which possess a lake of symmetry under reflection in a plane that involves at least one lattice point, The Rashba interactions are the most important type of spin orbit interactions that occur in low dimensional structures. They occur in two dimensional geometries. Their coupling coefficient is much higher than that of Dresselhaus interactions. They mainly depend on the inversion symmetry breaking in the direction perpendicular to the two dimensional structure.