Spin-Hall interface resistance in terms of Landauer-type spin dipoles

Abstract

We considered the nonequilibrium spin dipoles induced around spin-independent elastic scatterers by the intrinsic spin-Hall effect associated with the Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The spin polarization normal to the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) has been calculated in the diffusion range around the scatterer. Although around each impurity this polarization is finite, we found that the corresponding macroscopic spin density obtained via averaging of individual spin dipole distributions over impurity positions is zero in the bulk. At the same time, the spin density is finite near the boundary of 2DEG, except for a special case of a hard wall boundary, that is, when it turns to 0. The boundary value of the spin polarization can be associated with the interface spin-Hall resistance determining the additional energy dissipation due to spin accumulation.