2011/12/31 by Peter Stano, Jaroslav Fabian, Philippe Jacquod · 1 citation
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advancements in Semiconductor Devices and Circuit Design #Charge (physics) #Computer science #Condensed matter physics #Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides #Mesoscopic physics #Nonlinear system #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #SIGNAL (programming language) #Spin (aerodynamics) #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.85.241301
published as Physical Review B 85, 241301(R) (2012) · 4 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2011/12/31 · openalex publication_date 2012/06/01 · arxiv updated 2012/08/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Motivated by recent experiments [I. J. Vera-Marun, V. Ranjan, and B. J. van Wees, Nat. Phys. 8, 313 (2012)], we formulate a nonlinear theory of spin transport in quantum coherent conductors. We show how a mesoscopic constriction with energy-dependent transmission can convert a spin current injected by a spin accumulation into an electric signal, relying neither on magnetic nor exchange fields. When the transmission through the constriction is spin independent, the spin-charge coupling is nonlinear, with an electric signal that is quadratic in the accumulation. We estimate that gated mesoscopic constrictions have a sensitivity that allows to detect accumulations much smaller than a percent of the Fermi energy.