Photo-induced pure spin currents in quantum wells
arXiv:cond-mat/0501673
Abstract
As is well known the absorption of circularly polarized light in semiconductors results in optical orientation of electron spins and helicity-dependent electric photocurrent, and the absorption of linearly polarized light is accompanied by optical alignment of electron momenta. Here we show that the absorption of unpolarized light in a quantum well (QW) leads to generation of a pure spin current, although both the average electron spin and electric current are vanishing.
To be published in Proc. 13th Int. Symp. "Nanostructures: Physics and Technology", St.Petersburg, Russia, 2005