Effective period potential in a hybrid mesoscopic ring with Rashba spin–orbit interaction

•Instead of a ballistic ring, we investigated the persistent current in a hybrid ring.•An effective tunnel barrier is introduced by a region with different RSOI strength.•The effective tunnel barrier provides a way to manipulate the periodic potential.•We find energy gaps in the energy spectrum of the hybrid mesoscopic ring.

We investigate theoretically the persistent charge current (PCC) and pure spin current (PSC) in a hybrid mesoscopic ring with Rashba spin–orbit interaction (RSOI). The PCC and PSC surviving in the ring would experience a periodic potential formed by the band offset of the constituent materials. Similarly, an effective tunnel barrier can be introduced by a region with different RSOI strength. This provides us a convenient way to manipulate the periodic potential by changing the RSOI strength through an electric field. With the increment of the RSOI strength, the PCC is suppressed, while the PSC presents an oscillatory pattern changing from negative to positive.