Spin-Hall Effect in Two-Dimensional Electron Systems with Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling and Disorder

L. Sheng, D. N. Sheng, C. S. Ting

Published 2004-09-01, updated 2005-01-08Version 3

Using the four-terminal Landauer-B\"{u}ttiker formula and Green's function approach, we calculate numerically the spin-Hall conductance in a two-dimensional junction system with the Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling and disorder. We find that the spin-Hall conductance can be much greater or smaller than the universal value $e/8\pi$, depending on the magnitude of the SO coupling, the electron Fermi energy and the disorder strength. The spin-Hall conductance does not vanish with increasing sample size for a wide range of disorder strength. Our numerical calculation reveals that a nonzero SO coupling can induce electron delocalization for disorder strength smaller than a critical value, and the nonvanishing spin-Hall effect appears mainly in the metallic regime.