Issue |
EPL
Volume 103, Number 4, August 2013
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 47003 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Condensed Matter: Electronic Structure, Electrical, Magnetic and Optical Properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/103/47003 | |
Published online | 10 September 2013 |
Relativistic effects in scattering of polarized electrons
1 School of Physics, University of New South Wales - Sydney 2052, Australia
2 Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics - 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia
3 The Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency - Tokai 319-1195, Japan
4 CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency - Sanbancho 102-0075, Japan
Received: 27 June 2013
Accepted: 22 August 2013
The right-left asymmetry (skew scattering) and the side jump effect are manifestations of the spin-orbit interaction in scattering of polarized electrons. While the side jump effect is less known than the right-left asymmetry, the effect is of conceptual importance for generic spin-orbital physics, and the effect is widely discussed in spintronics. We reexamine the side jump effect accounting for the exact nonperturbative electron wave function inside the atom/impurity/host atomic core. We find that the size of the effect is much smaller than estimates accepted in the literature. The reduction factor is , where Z is the nuclear charge. This implies that the side jump effect is practically irrelevant, the skew scattering and/or the intrinsic mechanism always dominate the transverse deflection of the electron beam and hence dominate the anomalous Hall and spin Hall effects.
PACS: 72.25.-b – Spin polarized transport / 31.15.aj – Relativistic corrections, spin-orbit effects, fine structure; hyperfine structure / 34.80.Nz – Spin dependence of cross sections; polarized beam experiments
© EPLA, 2013
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