Orbital Hall Effect and Angular Momentum Dynamics in Confined Geometries

Abstract: We present an analysis of the orbital Hall effect (OHE) in a strip geometry and derive a formula for the orbital angular momentum (OAM) accumulation at the edges. The result is expressed in terms of band structure parameters and scattering rates, providing a link between experimental observations of the OHE and the underlying microscopics. A key result is that the effective OAM decay rate follows a Dykonov-Perel-like scaling and is inversely proportional to the electron scattering rate, even if the latter is small. Furthermore, investigating OAM transport in an inhomogeneous setting, we show that non-Ohmic flows and spatially varying electric fields result in contributions to the OHE which are distinct from the well known intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms.