  A theory of Electric Dipole Spin Resonance (EDSR), that is caused by various
mechanisms of spin-orbit coupling, is developed as applied to free electrons in
a parabolic quantum well. Choosing a parabolic shape of the well has allowed us
to find explicit expressions for the EDSR intensity and its dependence on the
magnetic field direction in terms of the basic parameters of the Hamiltonian.
By using these expressions, we have investigated and compared the effect of
specific mechanisms of spin orbit (SO) coupling and different polarizations of
ac electric field on the intensity of EDSR. Angular dependences of the EDSR
intensity are indicative of the relative contributions of the competing
mechanisms of SO coupling. Our results show that electrical manipulating
electron spins in quantum wells is generally highly efficient, especially by an
in-plane ac electric field.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics