title: Experimental separation of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin splittings in semiconductor quantum wells.
abstract: The relative strengths of Rashba and Dresselhaus terms describing the spin-orbit coupling in semiconductor quantum well (QW) structures are extracted from photocurrent measurements on n-type InAs QWs containing a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). This novel technique makes use of the angular distribution of the spin-galvanic effect at certain directions of spin orientation in the plane of a QW. The ratio of the relevant Rashba and Dresselhaus coefficients can be deduced directly from experiment and does not relay on theoretically obtained quantities. Thus our experiments open a new way to determine the different contributions to spin-orbit coupling.
authors.affiliation: Fakultät Physik, University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany.
authors.forename: S D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Ganichev
authors.forename: V V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Bel'kov
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Golub
authors.forename: E L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Ivchenko
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Giglberger
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eroms
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: De Boeck
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Borghs
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wegscheider
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Prettl