Effect of boundary scattering on spin-hall effect

The spin dependent reflection in quasi-two-dimensional electron gas from an impenetrable barrier in presence of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling is analysed in detail. It is shown that the due to spin-orbit effects the reflected beam split in two beams gives rise to multiple reflection analogous to phenomenon birefringence. The interplay between Rashba and Dresselhaus spin orbit coupling gives rise to anisotropy in Fermi energy surface and a non-zero net spin-polarized current oscillating with two frequencies for all the values of incident angle except at 45° when averaged over all components of reflected beam. It is also shown that in over critical region,all the three polarization components as well as net polarization has non-zero values and are exponentially decaying as distance from the barrier increases which in turns spin-accumulation near the barrier is an important consequence of spin-hall effect. Graphical abstract