Cyclotron motion and magnetic focusing in semiconductor quantum wells with spin-orbit coupling

John Schliemann

Published 2007-10-29, updated 2008-01-14Version 2

We investigate the ballistic motion of electrons in III-V semiconductor quantum wells with Rashba spin-orbit coupling in a perpendicular magnetic field. Taking into account the full quantum dynamics of the problem, we explore the modifications of classical cyclotron orbits due to spin-orbit interaction. As a result, for electron energies comparable with the cyclotron energy the dynamics are particularly rich and not adequately described by semiclassical approximations. Our study is complementary to previous semiclassical approaches concentrating on the regime of weaker fields.