Coupling of electron spin with its rotation in semiconductors

The interplay between spin-orbit interaction in semiconductor valence bands and an adiabatic rotational distortion of the wave function of a charge carrier leads to the scalar spin-orbit-rotation term in the effective-mass Hamiltonian of the conduction-band electron. The physical origin of this result lies in the fact that, similarly to magnetic field effects, the motion of a particle and the phase of its wave function may be affected by the vector potential of the inertial Coriolis field. Here we present a straightforward derivation of this interaction within the multiband envelope function approximation.