Transport and Superconductivity in Spin-Orbit Coupled Electron Systems

• Author / Creator

  Hutchinson, Joel G

• This thesis provides a theoretical discussion of several new phenomena associated with spin-orbit coupling in systems that lack inversion symmetry. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the context of spin-orbit coupling in condensed matter physics and the role of inversion symmetry breaking. The remainder of the thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 explores the effects of spin-orbit coupling on low-energy electron-impurity scattering. First, we study the single-particle scattering problem (Chapters 3 and 4) and find a host of unusual properties at ultra-low energies, including a quantized cross section. Chapter 5 extends these results to transport in a many-body system, where the quantized cross section manifests itself as a quantized conductivity. Part 2 explores the effect of spin-orbit coupling on superconductivity within BCS theory. In Chapter 7, we find that the critical temperature can be tuned by this coupling. In Chapter 8 we discuss the symmetry of the superconducting order parameter in the presence of attractive interactions between nearest-neighbour electrons. There we find that the gap function symmetry can change as a function of all the material parameters, including the temperature and spin-orbit coupling.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Hubbard model
  • S-matrix
  • correlated hopping
  • Rashba
  • crystallographic point group
  • superconductivity
  • critical temperature
  • spin-orbit coupling
  • T-matrix
  • spintronics
  • conductivity

• Graduation date

  Fall 2019

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-n71v-ef15

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.