Spin Precession and Oscillations in Mesoscopic Systems

Abstract

We compare and contrast magneto-transport oscillations in the fully quantum (single-electron coherent) and classical limits for a simple but illustrative model. In particular, we study the induced magnetization and spin current in a two-terminal double-barrier structure with an applied Zeeman field between the barriers and spin disequilibrium in the contacts. Classically, the spin current shows strong tunneling resonances due to spin precession in the region between the two barriers. However, these oscillations are distinguishable from those in the fully coherent case, for which a proper treatment of the electron phase is required. We explain the differences in terms of the presence or absence of coherent multiple wave reflections.

9 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Ballistic spin-polarized transport and Rashba spin precession in semiconductor nanowires
• Effect of the spin-orbit interaction on the band structure and conductance of quasi-one-dimensional systems
• Waveguide diffusion modes and slowdown of D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation in narrow 2-D semiconductor channels
• Spin filtering and magnetoresistance in ballistic tunnel junctions
• Coherent spin valve phenomena and electrical spin injection in ferromagnetic/semiconductor/ferromagnetic junctions
• Spin Transport in a Quantum Wire
• Quantum transport and momentum conserving dephasing

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Theory of Transport through Quantum-Dot Spin Valves in the Weak-Coupling Regime
• Using spin bias to manipulate and measure quantum spin in quantum dots
• Controlling spin in an electronic interferometer with spin-active interfaces
• Vibrational coherence in electron spin resonance in nanoscale oscillators
• Fluctuations of spin transport through chaotic quantum dots with spin-orbit coupling
• Impact of tunnel barrier strength on magnetoresistance in carbon nanotubes