Anholonomic spin manipulation in drift transport in semiconductors

We find that the electronic spin rotation induced by drift transport around a closed path in a wide variety of nonmagnetic semiconductors at zero magnetic field depends solely on the physical path taken. Physical paths that produce any possible spin rotation due to transport around a closed path are constructed for electrons experiencing strain or electric fields in (001), (110), or (111)-grown zincblende semiconductor quantum wells. Spin decoherence due to travel along the path is negligible compared to the background spin decoherence rate. The small size of the designed paths (<100 nm scale in GaAs) may lead to applications in nanoscale spintronic circuits.