- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review B

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Perspective
  • Open Access

Early years of Rashba's scientific career in Ukraine: Size effects and much more

V. N. Sokolov1 and V. A. Kochelap1,2

PDF

Phys. Rev. B 113, 139605 – Published 20 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/89jz-cf9z

Abstract

Professor Emmanuel Rashba worked in Kiev, Ukraine, from 1954 until 1966. An important part of his active scientific life belongs to this period. At that time in Ukraine various physical phenomena in semiconductors were widely investigated, and Rashba took an active part in the development of theory. In addition to well-known results obtained by him that are currently widely cited regarding the symmetry of electron bands, spin states, and the associated effects, Rashba also investigated electron transport in semiconductors under an electric field. Among these studies, a lot of his attention and publications were devoted to the so-called size effects in the conductivity of semiconductor microstructures limited by their geometric dimensions due to the sample edges. In this brief article, we have tried to recall Rashba's pioneering works on the size effects and to show their influence on further development of the physics and theory in this interesting and important area of research. In particular, this shows that even then Rashba had a clear understanding that future development of electronics would be directly related to the miniaturization of semiconductor devices, where the influence of physical boundaries and sample edges significantly affect their electrical properties.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Collections

This article appears in the following collection:

Honoring the legacy of Emmanuel Rashba

The passing of Professor Emmanuel Rashba in early 2025 was an irreparable loss to the physics community. For many decades prior, his numerous significant contributions have been driving solid state physics to surprising new places, realizations, and applications. To pay tribute to his many enduring, groundbreaking ideas, Physical Review B presents a special Collection with contributions by some of his disciples, collaborators, and connoisseurs of his mastery in top-shelf solid state research. Papers belonging to the collection will be published through 2026. It was initiated by Mark Dykman and Alexander Efros and colleagues. An Editorial from them and the contributed articles are linked below.

Article Text

References (28)

  1. E. I. Rashba, Looking back, J. Supercond. 16, 599 (2003).
  2. E. I. Rashba, Theory of strong interactions of electron excitations with lattice vibrations in molecular crystals. I, Opt. Spektrosk. 2, 75 (1957); Theory of strong interactions of electron excitations with lattice vibrations in molecular crystals. II, Opt. Spektrosk. 2, 88 (1957).
  3. E. I. Rashba, Self-trapping of excitons, in Excitons, edited by E. I. Rashba and M. D. Sturge (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1982), Chap. 13, pp. 543-602.
  4. S. I. Pekar, E. I. Rashba, and V. I. Sheka, Free and self-trapped Wannier-Mott excitons in ionic crystals and the activation energy of their mutual transitions, Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 76, 251 (1979) [Sov. Phys. JETP 49, 129 (1079)].
  5. E. I. Rashba, Symmetry of bands in wurzite-type crystals. I. Symmetry of bands disregarding spin-orbit interaction, Fiz. Tverd. Tela 1, 407 (1959) [Sov. Phys. Solid State 1, 368 (1959)].
  6. E. I. Rashba and V. I. Sheka, Symmetry of energy bands in crystals of Wurtzite type II. Symmetry of bands with spin-orbit interaction included, Fiz. Tverd. Tela: Collected Papers 2, 62 (1959); G. Bihlmayer, O. Rader, and R. Winkler, Focus on the Rashba effect, New. J. Phys. 17, 050202 (2015).
  7. E. I. Rashba, Properties of semiconductors with an extremum loop. I. Cyclotron and combinational resonance in a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the loop, Fiz. Tverd. Tela 2, 1224 (1960) [Sov. Phys. Solid State 2, 1109 (1960)].
  8. E. I. Rashba, Redistributions of carriers between valleys in an electric field, Zh Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 48, 1427 (1965) [Sov. Phys. JETP 21, 954 (1965)].
  9. Z. S. Gribnikov, V. A. Kochelap, and E. I. Rashba, Appearance of domains in 93 many-valley semiconductors during the passage of strong currents, Zh Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 51, 266 (1966) [Sov. Phys. JETP 24, 178 (1967)].
  10. E. I. Rashba, Z. S. Gribnikov, and V. Ya Kravchenko, Anisotropic size effects in semiconductors and semimetals, Usp. Fiz. Nauk 119, 3 (1976) [Sov. Phys. Usp. 19, 361 (1976)].
  11. E. I. Rashba, V. A. Romanov, I. I. Boiko, and I. P. Zhadko, Electrical pinch in elastically deformed germanium, Phys. Status Solidi (b) 16, 43 (1966).
  12. E. I. Rashba, I. I. Boiko, V. A. Kochelap, Z. S. Gribnikov, and I. P. Zhadko, Size effects in conductivity of semiconductors with a few types of carriers, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 21, 351 (1966), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors, Kyoto, Japan (ICPS, 1966).
  13. V. N. Sokolov, V. A. Kochelap, and K. W. Kim, Magnetoconcentration effect in intrinsic graphene ribbons, Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 112112 (2010).
  14. V. A. Kochelap and V. N. Sokolov, Size effect in many-valley semiconductors in a heating electric field, Ukr. Fiz. Zh. 16, 1082 (1971) [Ukr. J. Phys. 16, 1082 (1971)].
  15. N. Nagaosa, J. Sinova, S. Onoda, A. H. MacDonald, and N. P. Ong, Anomalous Hall effect, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 1539 (2010).
  16. D. Xiao, G. B. Liu, W. Feng, X. Xu, and W. Yao, Coupled spin and valley physics in monolayers of MoS2 and other group-VI dichalcogenides, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 196802 (2012).
  17. V. A. Kochelap and V. N. Sokolov, Anisotropic electron transport Rashba effects in valleytronics, Phys. Rev. B 106, 245422 (2022).
  18. V. A. Kochelap, V. N. Sokolov, and K. W. Kim, Domains of electrically induced valley polarization in two-dimensional Dirac semiconductors, Phys. Rev. B 104, 075403 (2021).
  19. V. A. Kochelap and V. N. Sokolov, Transverse electric effects in charge-coupled van der Waals ribbons made of anisotropic 2D crystals, J. Appl. Phys. 127, 224302 (2020).
  20. D. Xiao, M.-C. Chang, and Q. Niu, Berry phase effects on electronic properties, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 1959 (2010).
  21. V. A. Piragas, Anisotropic size effect of spin polarization in a semiconductor, Fiz. Tekh. Poluprovodn. 13, 2139 (1979) [Sov. Phys. Semicond. 13, 1251 (1979)].
  22. M. Kohda, S. Nakamura, Y. Nishihara, K. Kobayashi, T. Ono, Jun-i. Ohe, Y. Tokura, T. Mineno, and J. Nitta, Spin–orbit induced electronic spin separation in semiconductor nanostructures, Nat. Commun. 3, 1082 (2012).
  23. J. Sinova, S. O. Valenzuela, J. Wunderlich, C. H. Back, and T. Jungwirth, Spin Hall effects, Rev. Mod. Phys. 87, 1213 (2015).
  24. V. A. Kochelap and V. N. Sokolov, Size effects in fluctuation spectra of many-valley semiconductors, Phys. Rev. B 57, 15465 (1998).
  25. Z. S. Gribnikov, V. I. Melnikov, and T. S. Sorokina, Dimensional effect in the electrical conductivity of semiconductors during heating of the electron gas, Fiz. Tverd. Tela (Leningrad) 8, 3379 (1966) [Sov. Phys. Solid State 8, 2699 (1967)].
  26. A. I. Klimovskaya, O. V. Snitko, and V. I. Melnikov, Dimensional effects connected with hot electrons in silicon, in Proceedings of the IX International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors, Moscow, 1968, edited by S. M. Ryvkin (Nauka, Leningrad, 1968), Vol. II, pp. 801–805.
  27. A. I. Klimovskaya, S. I. Kirilova, and O. V. Snitko, Size-induced changes in valley populations in strong electric fields, II, Fiz. Tekh. Poluprovodn. 13, 1891 (1979) [Sov. Phys. Semicond. 13, 1103 (1979)].
  28. V. A. Kochelap, V. N. Sokolov, and N. A. Zakhleniuk, Limitation and suppression of hot-electron fluctuations in submicrometer semiconductor structures, Phys. Rev. B 48, 2304 (1993).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. B 113, 139605– Published 20 April, 2026
  • Received 28 August 2025
  • Revised 23 October 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation