We study the effect of the interplay between the Rashba and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings on the transverse electron focusing in two-dimensional electron gases. Depending on their relative magnitude, the presence of both couplings can result in the splitting of the first focusing peak into two or three. This splitting has information about the relative value of spin-orbit couplings and therefore about the shape of the Fermi surface. More interesting, the presence of the third peak is directly related to the tunneling probability (“magnetic breakdown”) between orbits corresponding to the different sheets of the Fermi surface. In addition, destructive interference effects between paths that involve tunneling and those that do not can be observed in the second focusing condition. Such electron paths (orbits) could be experimentally detected using current techniques for imaging the electron flow opening the possibility to directly observe and characterize the magnetic breakdown effect in this system.

• Received 24 June 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.115312