Non-magnetic Stern-Gerlach Experiment from Electron Diffraction

Abstract

Using the wave nature of the electrons, we demonstrate that a transverse spin current can be generated simply by the diffraction through a single slit in the spin-orbital coupling system of the two-dimensional electron gas. The diffracted electron picks up the transverse momentum. The up spin electron goes one way and the down spin electron goes the other, producing the coherent spin current. In the system of spin-orbital coupling $\sim 10^{-13}$ eV$\cdot$m, the \emph{out-of-plane} component of the spin of the electron can be generated up to 0.42 $\hslash$. Based on this effect, a novel device of grating to distill spin is designed. Two first diffraction peaks of electron carry different spins, duplicating the non-magnetic version of Stern-Gerlach experiment. The direction of the spin current can be controlled by the gate voltage with low energy cost.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Quantum simulation of a spin polarization device in an electron microscope
• Spin Distribution in Diffraction Pattern of Two-dimensional Electron Gas with Spin-orbit Coupling