Effects of an in-plane magnetic field on the energy dispersion, spin texturing and conductance of double quantum wires

Abstract

We investigate the electronic structure, spin and transport properties of double quantum wires formed by a symmetric, double quartic-well potential subjected to an in-plane magnetic field by taking into account Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings. The energy dispersion relation of the system is analyzed for different strengths of spin-orbit interactions, magnitude and direction of magnetic field. Our numerical results reveal that the existence of aforementioned parameters modifies strongly the energy band structure, introduces a wave vector dependence to energies and also leads to crossings and anticrossings between subbands. This complex structure of energy dispersion gives rise to the appearance of square-wave like oscillations in the conductance. The spin-orbit couplings, magnetic field, potential profile and Fermi energy of an electron significantly affect the depth and width of conductance steps. Moreover, we found that the competing effect between spin-orbit couplings and magnetic field leaves its marks on the spin texturing. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.