Similar to the Landauer electric dipole created around an impurity by the electric current, a spin polarized cloud of electrons can be induced by the intrinsic spin Hall effect near a spin independent elastic scatterer. It is shown that in the ballistic range around the impurity, such a cloud appears in the case of Rashba spin-orbit interaction, even though the bulk spin Hall current is absent.

• Received 24 April 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.076601