Spin-orbit interaction effects on the optical properties of spherical quantum dot

In this paper simultaneous effects of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and quantum confinement on the optical absorption coefficient and refractive index of a typical spherical GaAs quantum dot are studied. Based on the results obtained in our recent paper [B. Vaseghi, et. al., Phys. Lett. A 375 (2011) 2747] it is shown that, absorption coefficient increases and refractive index changes remain constant with considering the SOI. Moreover, the spectrum of these optical quantities move toward higher energies of incident photons as SOI strength increases. The interesting point is that, the SOI effect varies with dimension and depends on the quantum confinement. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.