Zeeman ratchets for ballistic spin currents

Abstract

We investigate the possiblity of creating directed spin-polarized currents in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) subject to an asymmetric magnetic field and an external adiabatic driving. We thereby generalize concepts of quantum charge ratchets to the case with spin. Due to the Zeeman term in the Hamiltonian, spin-up and -down electrons experience different effective potentials, which can be tailored to achieve net spin currents without corresponding charge currents. We consider ballistic, coherent transport in waveguides defined in a 2DEG, where the magnetic field modulation is induced by ferromagnetic stripes on top of the 2DEG.

4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in physica status solidi (c) (2006)

References in corpus (3)

• Spintronics: Fundamentals and applications
• An Adiabatic Quantum Pump of Spin Polarized Current
• Pumping spin with electrical fields

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Semiconductor Spintronics
• Quantum transport in Rashba spin-orbit materials: A review
• Zeeman ratchets: pure spin current generation in mesoscopic conductors with non-uniform magnetic fields
• Coherent spin ratchets: A spin-orbit based quantum ratchet mechanism for spin-polarized currents in ballistic conductors
• Spin current and rectification in Luttinger liquids
• Spin current and rectification in one-dimensional electronic systems
• Terahertz spin ratchet effect in magnetic metamaterials
• A quantum-network approach to spin interferometry driven by Abelian and non-Abelian fields
• Spin-Orbit Based Coherent Spin Ratchets
• Resonant tunneling-based spin ratchets
• Pumping angular momentum by driven chaotic scattering