Spin-orbit effects in a graphene bipolar pn junction

A graphene pn junction is studied theoretically in the presence of both intrinsic and Rashba spin-orbit couplings. We show that a crossover from perfect reflection to perfect transmission is achieved at normal incidence by tuning the perpendicular electric field. By further studying angular-dependent transmission, we demonstrate that perfect reflection at normal incidence can be clearly distinguished from trivial band gap effects. We also investigate how spin-orbit effects modify the conductance and the Fano factor associated with a potential step in both nn and np cases. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2009