Tunable Aharonov-Anandan phase in transport through mesoscopic hole rings

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates how confinement-induced heavy-hole and light-hole mixing in mesoscopic hole rings causes an energy-dependent Aharonov-Anandan phase, affecting magneto-transport properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel understanding of the origin of the Aharonov-Anandan phase in hole rings, emphasizing the role of hole mixing rather than spin splittings.

Findings

Energy-dependent Aharonov-Anandan phase observed in conductance.

Heavy-hole and light-hole mixing is key to phase emergence.

Implications for magneto-transport measurements in hole rings.

Abstract

We present a theoretical study of spin-3/2 hole transport through mesoscopic rings, based on the spherical Luttinger model. The quasi-one-dimensional ring is created in a symmetric two-dimensional quantum well by a singular-oscillator potential for the radial in-plane coordinate. The quantum-interference contribution to the two-terminal ring conductance exhibits an energy-dependent Aharonov-Anandan phase, even though Rashba and Dresselhaus spin splittings are absent. Instead, confinement-induced heavy-hole - light-hole mixing is found to be the origin of this phase, which has ramifications for magneto-transport measurements in gated hole rings.