English

Semiclassical theory of spin-polarized shot noise in mesoscopic diffusive conductors

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2009-11-10 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We study fluctuations of spin-polarized currents in a three-terminal spin-valve system consisting of a diffusive normal metal wire connected by tunnel junctions to three ferromagnetic terminals. Based on a spin-dependent Boltzmann-Langevin equation, we develop a semiclassical theory of charge and spin currents and the correlations of the currents fluctuations. In the three terminal system, we show that current fluctuations are strongly affected by the spin-flip scattering in the normal metal and the spin polarizations of the terminals, which may point in different directions. We analyze the dependence of the shot noise and the cross-correlations on the spin-flip scattering rate in the full range of the spin polarizations and for different magnetic configurations. Our result demonstrate that noise measurements in multi-terminal devices allow to determine the spin-flip scattering rate by changing the polarizations of ferromagnetic terminals.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0409166,
  title  = {Semiclassical theory of spin-polarized shot noise in mesoscopic diffusive conductors},
  author = {M. Zareyan and W. Belzig},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0409166},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

12 pages, 5 figures