Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2008

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Physical Review B

Volume

77

Issue

15

DOI of Original Publication

10.1103/PhysRevB.77.155439

Comments

Originally published by the American Physical Society at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.77.155439

Date of Submission

April 2015

Abstract

We calculate the terahertz absorption spectra associated with intersubband transitions in a semiconductor quantum wire in the presence of spin-orbit interaction and a transverse magnetic field. The frequencies and intensities of the absorption peaks are found to depend strongly on the spin-orbit coupling strength, which can be varied with an external electric field. This feature can be exploited to realize reconfigurable multispectral terahertz detectors and amplitude and/or frequency modulators. We also show that electric dipole transitions between spin-split levels in the same subband (which are normally deemed forbidden) become allowed because of spin texturing effects. The absorption associated with these transitions experience a redshift (blueshift) with increasing spin-orbit coupling strength for materials with negative (positive) g factor. The normally allowed transitions, on the other hand, experience the opposite shift, i.e., blue for materials with negative g factor and red for materials with positive g factor. The theory described here is universal and applies to all semiconductors.

Rights

Upadhyaya, P., Pramanik, S., and Bandyopadhyay, S. Optical transitions in a quantum wire with spin-orbit interaction and its applications in terahertz electronics: Beyond zeroth-order theory. Physical Review B, 77, 155439 (2008). Copyright © 2008 American Physical Society.

Is Part Of

VCU Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Share

COinS