Eur. Phys. J. B 65, 85-90 (2008)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2008-00313-8

Temperature-dependent transport and spin accumulation in a quantum wire with Rashba spin-orbit interaction

¹ Key laboratory of semiconductor material science, Institute of semiconductors, Chinese academy of science, P.O. Box 912, Beijing 100083, P.R. China
² Department of Physics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, P.R. China
³ International Center for Materials Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110015, P.R. China

Corresponding author: ^a ghzhou@hunnu.edu.cn

Received: 16 May 2008
Revised: 16 June 2008
Published online: 30 July 2008

Abstract

We study the theory of temperature-dependent electron transport, spin polarization, and spin accumulation in a Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI) quantum wire connected nonadiabatically to two normal conductor electrode leads. The influence of both the wire-lead connection and the RSOI on the electron transport is treated analytically by means of a scattering matrix technique and by using an effective free-electron approximation. Through analytical analysis and numerical examples, we demonstrate a simple way to design a sensitive spin-transfer switch that operates without applying any external magnetic fields or attaching ferromagnetic contacts. We also demonstrate that the antisymmetry of the spin accumulation can be destroyed slightly by the coupling between the leads and the wire. Moreover, temperature can weaken the polarization and smear out the oscillations in the spin accumulation.