Coulomb interaction effects in spin-polarized transport
Abstract
We study the effect of the electron-electron interaction on the transport of spin polarized currents in metals and doped semiconductors in the diffusive regime. In addition to well-known screening effects, we identify two additional effects, which depend on many-body correlations and exchange and reduce the spin diffusion constant. The first is the "spin Coulomb drag" - an intrinsic friction mechanism which operates whenever the average velocities of up-spin and down-spin electrons differ. The second arises from the decrease in the longitudinal spin stiffness of an interacting electron gas relative to a noninteracting one. Both effects are studied in detail for both degenerate and non-degenerate carriers in metals and semiconductors, and various limiting cases are worked out analytically. The behavior of the spin diffusion constant at and below a ferromagnetic transition temperature is also discussed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0108228,
title = {Coulomb interaction effects in spin-polarized transport},
author = {Irene D'Amico and Giovanni Vignale},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0108228},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
9 figures