Influence of spin-orbit coupling on spin-polarized electronic transport in magnetic semiconductor nanowires with nanosized sharp domain walls

• Published in: Chinese physics B 2018-04, Vol.27 (4), p.47201
• Main Authors: Liu, Lian, Chen, Wen-Xiang, Wang, Rui-Qiang, Hu, Liang-Bin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: domain wall; magnetic semiconductor nanowires; spin-orbit coupling; spin-polarized electronic transport
• ISSN: 1674-1056
• DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/27/4/047201

Influence of spin-orbit coupling on spin-polarized electronic transport in magnetic semiconductor nanowires with nanosized sharp domain walls is investigated theoretically. It is shown that the Rashba spin-orbit coupling can enhance significantly the spin-flip scattering of charge carriers from a nanosized sharp domain wall whose extension is much smaller than the carrier's Fermi wavelength. When there are more than one domain wall presented in a magnetic semiconductor nanowire, not only the spin-flip scattering of charge carriers from the domain walls but the quantum interference of charge carriers in the intermediate domain regions between neighboring domain walls may play important roles on spin-polarized electronic transport, and in such cases the influences of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling will depend sensitively both on the domain walls' width and the domain walls' separation.