Electron tunneling in a non-magnetic heterostructure in presence of both Dresselhaus and Rashba spin–orbit terms

In this paper, the electron tunneling in a non-magnetic heterostructure is theoretically investigated in presence of both Dresselhaus and Rashba spin–orbit terms. We find that the considerable spin polarization can be achieved in such a non-magnetic structure, and in the different electron energy regions or for the different barrier heights, the Dresselhaus and Rashba spin–orbit couplings play a different role in the spin polarization. We also find that the transmission probability and the spin polarization both show a periodic profile with the increase of the well width.