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CFN Lectures on Functional Nanostructures - Volume 2 pp 125–144Cite as

Adiabatic Spin Pumping with Quantum Dots

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Physics ((LNP,volume 820))

Abstract

Electronic transport in mesoscopic systems has been intensively studied for more the last three decades. While there is a substantial understanding of the stationary regime, much less is know about phase-coherent nonequilibrium transport when pulses or ac perturbations are used to drive electrons at low temperatures and at small length scales. However, about 20 years ago Thouless proposed to drive nondissipative currents in quantum systems by applying simultaneously two phase-locked external perturbations. The so-called adiabatic pumping mechanism has been revived in the last few years, both theoretically and experimentally, in part because of the development of lateral semiconductor quantum dots. Here we will explain how open dots can be used to create spin-polarized currents with little or no net charge transfer. The pure spin pump we propose is the analog of a charge battery in conventional electronics and may provide a needed circuit element for spin-based electronics. We will also discuss other relevant issues such as rectification and decoherence and point out possible extensions of the mechanism to closed dots.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Spin pumping in interacting nanowires was first discussed in Ref. [27] and further extended in Ref. [28].

  2. 2.

    Here for convenience, we have adopted the same units for charge and spin currents.

  3. 3.

    Electron densities are usually around 1011 cm?2 in high-quality GaAs wafers.

  4. 4.

    It is not too restrictive to assume that W n? does not depend on the incoming or outgoing particle energy. The pumping current will still depend on the chemical potential in the leads through the Fermi distribution functions and the fact that W n? depends on the dot state through n.

  5. 5.

    Since charge is not accumulated during the pumping cycle, all current that flows from one of the reservoirs enters the other: I left =  ? I right

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to C. Chamon, C. Lewenkopf, C. Marcus, and M. Martínez-Mares for fruitful collaborations on this subject. The material presented here is based on published work we have co-authored. I also would like to thank P. Brouwer, B. Reulet, P. Sharma, and S. Watson for useful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Central Florida, P.O. Box 162385, Orlando, FL, 32816-2385, USA

    Eduardo R. Mucciolo

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  1. Eduardo R. Mucciolo
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Correspondence to Eduardo R. Mucciolo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Theoretische Physik, TU Dresden, Dresden, 01062, Germany

    Matthias Vojta

  2. DFG - Centrum für, Funktionelle Nanostrukturen (CFN), Universität Karlsruhe, Wolfgang-Gaede-Str. 1, Karlsruhe, 76131, Germany

    Christian Röthig

  3. DFG - Centrum für, Funktionelle Nanostrukturen (CFN), Universität Karlsruhe, Wolfgang-Gaede-Str. 1, Karlsruhe, 76131, Germany

    Gerd Schön

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Mucciolo, E.R. (2010). Adiabatic Spin Pumping with Quantum Dots. In: Vojta, M., Röthig, C., Schön, G. (eds) CFN Lectures on Functional Nanostructures - Volume 2. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 820. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14376-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14376-2_7

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