Semiclassical path integral approach on spin relaxations in narrow wires

Cheng-Hung Chang, Jengjan Tsai, Hui-Fen Lo, A. G. Mal'shukov

Published 2009-02-17, updated 2009-02-18Version 2

The semiclassical path integral method has been applied for studying spin relaxation in a narrow 2D strip with the Rashba spin-orbit interaction. Our numerical calculations show a good agreement with the experimental data, although some features of experimental results are not clear yet. We also calculated the relaxation of a uniform spin-density distribution in the ballistic regime of very narrow wires. With the decreasing wire width, the spin polarization exhibits a transition from the exponential decay to the oscillatory Bessel-like relaxation. The SPI method has been also employed to calculate the relaxation of the particularly long-lived helix mode. A good agreement has been found with calculations based on the diffusion theory.