Abstract
We describe the trembling motion of conduction-band electrons in solids. The effect originates from the fact that, in the presence of the Rashba/Dresselhaus spin–orbit coupling and the Zeeman splitting, the electron velocity is not a conserved quantity and contains a contribution oscillating at the frequency determined by the spin gap. The phenomenon is similar to the Zitterwebegung of relativistic particles. Trembling motion of individual electrons can be phase-synchronized by initializing the electrons in the same spin states and detected as a macroscopic high-frequency electric current, which is maintained in the system until the electron spin coherence is lost. We also show that the amplitude of such a coherent Zitterbewegung current is increased when its frequency matches the plasmon frequency.
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Published in Russian in Pis’ma v Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki, 2018, Vol. 108, No. 5, pp. 348–352.
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Tarasenko, S.A., Poshakinskiy, A.V., Ivchenko, E.L. et al. Zitterbewegung of Spin Split Electrons. Jetp Lett. 108, 326–328 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0021364018170022
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0021364018170022