Pressure effects on the spin-orbit interactions in low-dimensional quantum well systems

Donor binding energies and spin-orbit interactions (SOIs) are estimated in GaAs-Ga1-xAlxAs quantum well and quantum dot systems. The effect of the conduction band non-parabolicity on these energies is also estimated. In all the cases investigated, the maximum contribution by the non-parabolicity effect is about 5% for narrow well dimensions. It is also seen that the SOI is one order higher in a quantum dot system as compared to a quantum well case. In both cases, the spin-orbit splitting is four orders smaller than the donor binding energies. We observe that the Rashba and Dresslhaus SOIs are about the same order as the conventional spin-orbit contributions. We have also investigated the effect of pressure on the SOI energies and find appreciable enhancement in the quantum well case. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.