Excitation of spin waves on a cylindrical semiconductor heterostructure with Rashba spin–orbit interaction

Abstract

Elementary excitations in a paramagnetic semiconductor quantum well confined to a cylindrical surface are theoretically studied on the basis of coupled spin–charge drift–diffusion equations. The electric field-mediated eigenmodes are optically excited by an oscillating interference pattern, which induces a current in the outer circuit. For a cylinder with a given radius, sharp resonances are predicted to occur in the steady-state current response, which are due to weakly damped spin remagnetization waves.