Anisotropic spin-dependent electron tunneling in a triple-barrier resonant tunneling diode

The one-band envelope function approximation is used to investigate the spin-dependent tunneling of conduction band electrons in semiconductor heterostructures when both the bulk inversion asymmetry (BIA) and structure inversion asymmetry (SIA) are present. It is shown that under certain conditions the interplay between BIA and SIA may be used to induce a strong dependence of transmission probabilities on the direction of electrons lateral momenta thus offering means to improve the existing designs of nonmagnetic semiconductor spin filters.