Curvature-induced Rashba spin-orbit interaction in strain-driven nanostructures

Abstract

We derive the effective dimensionally reduced Schrödinger equation with spin-orbit interaction in low-dimensional electronic strain driven nanostructures. A method of adiabatic separation among fast normal quantum degrees of freedom and slow tangential quantum degrees of freedom is used to show the emergence of a strain-induced Rashba-like spin-orbit interaction (SOI). By applying this analysis to one-dimensional curved quantum wires we demonstrate that the curvature-induced Rashba SOI leads to enhanced spin-orbit effects.

5 pages, 3 figures, to be published in SPIN (World Scientific) as Topical Issue on Functional Nanomembranes