Detection of spin polarized currents in quantum point contacts via transverse electron focusing

Abstract

It has been predicted recently that an electron beam can be polarized when it flows adiabatically through a quantum point contact in a system with spin-orbit interaction. Here, we show that a simple transverse electron focusing setup can be used to detect such polarized current. It uses the amplitude's asymmetry of the spin-split transverse electron focusing peak to extract information about the electron's spin polarization. On the other hand, and depending on the quantum point contact geometry, including this one-body effect can be important when using the focusing setup to study many-body effects in quantum point contacts.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (13)

• Dissipationless Quantum Spin Current at Room Temperature
• Theory of Spin Hall conductivity in n-doped GaAs
• Zitterbewegung of electronic wave packets in semiconductor nanostructures
• Magnetic impurity formation in quantum point contacts
• Generating Spin Currents in Semiconductors with the Spin Hall Effect
• Transport equations for a two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit interaction
• Transverse Electron Focusing in Systems with Spin-Orbit Coupling
• Transverse Spin-Orbit Force in the Spin Hall Effect in Ballistic Semiconductor Wires
• Theory of Edge States in Systems with Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling
• Polarized Electric Current in Semiclassical Transport with Spin-Orbit Interaction
• Interference as a Probe of Spin Incoherence in Strongly Interacting Quantum Wires
• On the Magnetic Nature of Quantum Point Contacts
• Charge and spin transport in nanoscopic structures with spin-orbit coupling

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Anomalous Josephson Current in Junctions with Spin-Polarizing Quantum Point Contacts
• Spin-orbit induced chirality of Andreev states in Josephson junctions
• Ballistic transport spectroscopy of spin-orbit-coupled bands in monolayer graphene on WSe${}_2$
• Magnetic focusing of charge carriers from spin-split bands: Semiclassics of a Zitterbewegung effect
• Cyclotron motion and magnetic focusing in semiconductor quantum wells with spin-orbit coupling
• Magnetic breakdown of cyclotron orbits in systems with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling
• Direct observation of exchange-driven spin interactions in one-dimensional system
• Temperature Dependence of Spin-Split Peaks in Transverse Electron Focusing
• Spin-current quantization in a quantum point contact with spin-orbit interaction
• Imaging chiral Andreev reflection in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling