%0 Journal Article %J Physical Review B %D 2006 %T Multiple-scattering theory for two-dimensional electron gases in the presence of spin-orbit coupling %A Walls, Jamie D %A Huang, Jian %A Robert M. Westervelt %A Heller, EricJ. %X

In order to model the phase-coherent scattering of electrons in two-dimensional electron gases in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling, a general partial-wave expansion is developed for scattering from a cylindrically symmetric potential. The theory is applied to possible electron flow imaging experiments using a moveable scanning probe microscope tip. In such experiments, it is demonstrated theoretically that the Rashba spin-orbit coupling can give rise to spin interference effects, even for unpolarized electrons at nonzero temperature and no magnetic field.

%B Physical Review B %I APS %V 73 %P 035325 %G eng %U https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.73.035325