title: Polaron formation in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling: implications for spintronics.
abstract: We study the effects of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling on polaron formation, using a suitable generalization of the momentum average approximation. While previous work on a parabolic band model found that spin-orbit coupling increases the effective mass, we show that the opposite holds for a tight-binding model, unless both the spin-orbit and the electron-phonon couplings are weak. It is thus possible to lower the effective mass of the polaron by increasing the spin-orbit coupling. We also show that when the spin-orbit coupling is large as compared to the phonon energy, the polaron retains only one of the spin-polarized bands in its coherent spectrum. This has major implications for the propagation of spin-polarized currents in such materials, and thus for spintronic applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z1.
authors.forename: Lucian
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Covaci
authors.forename: Mona
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berciu