Ballistic Quantum Transport: Effect of Geometrical Phases

Abstract

We study the influence of nonuniform magnetic fields on the magneto conductance of mesoscopic microstructures. We show that the coupling of the electron spin to the inhomogenous field gives rise to effects of the Berry phase on ballistic quantum transport and discuss adiabaticity conditions required to observe such effects. We present numerical results for different ring geometries showing a splitting of Aharonov-Bohm conductance peaks for single rings and corresponding signatures of the geometrical phase in weak localization. The latter features can be qualitatively explained in a semiclassical approach to quantum transport.

15 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Foundations of Physics

References in corpus (5)

• Semiclassical Time Evolution and Trace Formula for Relativistic Spin-1/2 Particles
• InAs-AlSb quantum wells in tilted magnetic fields
• Observing the Berry phase in diffusive conductors: Necessary conditions for adiabaticity
• Investigation of the Mesoscopic Aharonov-Bohm effect in Low Magnetic Fields
• Berry phase and persistent current in disordered mesoscopic rings

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Spin interference effects in ring conductors subject to Rashba coupling
• Quantum Transport in Nonuniform Magnetic Fields: Aharonov-Bohm Ring as a Spin Switch
• Unpaired Floquet Majorana fermions without magnetic fields
• Constructing Spin Interference Devices from Nanometric Rings
• Aharonov-Bohm Physics with Spin II: Spin-Flip Effects in Two-dimensional Ballistic Systems
• Aharonov-Bohm Physics with Spin I: Geometric Phases in One-dimensional Ballistic Rings
• Signatures of spin-related phases in transport through regular polygons
• Conditions for Adiabatic Spin Transport in Disordered Systems
• Spin resonance under topological driving fields
• Geometric vector potentials from non-adiabatic spin dynamics
• Theory of spin polarization in mesoscopic spin-orbit coupling systems
• Geometric phases and Andreev reflection in hybrid rings