  The effects of the spin-orbit interaction on the tunneling magnetoresistance
of ferromagnet/semiconductor/normal metal tunnel junctions are investigated.
Analytical expressions for the tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance (TAMR)
are derived within an approximation in which the dependence of the
magnetoresistance on the magnetization orientation in the ferromagnet
originates from the interference between Bychkov-Rashba and Dresselhaus
spin-orbit couplings that appear at junction interfaces and in the tunneling
region. We also investigate the transport properties of
ferromagnet/semiconductor/ferromagnet tunnel junctions and show that in such
structures the spin-orbit interaction leads not only to the TAMR effect but
also to the anisotropy of the conventional tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR).
The resulting anisotropic tunneling magnetoresistance (ATMR) depends on the
absolute magnetization directions in the ferromagnets. Within the proposed
model, depending on the magnetization directions in the ferromagnets, the
interplay of Bychkov-Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings produces
differences between the rates of transmitted and reflected spins at the
ferromagnet/seminconductor interfaces, which results in an anisotropic local
density of states at the Fermi surface and in the TAMR and ATMR effects. Model
calculations for Fe/GaAs/Fe tunnel junctions are presented. Furthermore, based
on rather general symmetry considerations, we deduce the form of the
magnetoresistance dependence on the absolute orientations of the magnetizations
in the ferromagnets.
