English

Mesoscopic Stern-Gerlach device to polarize spin currents

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2009-11-07 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

Spin preparation and spin detection are fundamental problems in spintronics and in several solid state proposals for quantum information processing. Here we propose the mesoscopic equivalent of an optical polarizing beam splitter (PBS). This interferometric device uses non-dispersive phases (Aharonov-Bohm and Rashba) in order to separate spin up and spin down carriers into distinct outputs and thus it is analogous to a Stern-Gerlach apparatus. It can be used both as a spin preparation device and as a spin measuring device by converting spin into charge (orbital) degrees of freedom. An important feature of the proposed spin polarizer is that no ferromagnetic contacts are used.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0207533,
  title  = {Mesoscopic Stern-Gerlach device to polarize spin currents},
  author = {Radu Ionicioiu and Irene D'Amico},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0207533},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Updated to the published version

R2 v1 2026-07-22T10:39:25.265Z