Effective one-band approach for the spin splittings in quantum wells

The spin-orbit interaction of two-dimensional electrons in quantum wells grown from the III-V semiconductors consists of two parts with different symmetry: the Bychkov-Rashba and the Dresselhaus terms. The last term is usually attributed to the bulk spin-orbit Hamiltonian which reflects the T-d symmetry of the zincblende lattice. While it is known that the quantum well interfaces may also contribute to the Dresselhaus term, the exact structure and relative importance of the interface and bulk contributions are not well understood. To deal with this problem, we perform tight-binding calculations of the spin splittings of the electron levels in [100] GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. We show that the obtained spin splittings can be adequately described within the one-band electron Hamiltonian containing, together with the bulk contribution, the two interface contributions to the Dresselhaus term. The magnitude of the interface contribution to the spin-orbit interaction for sufficiently narrow quantum wells is of the same order as the bulk contribution.