Anholonomic spin manipulation in drift transport in semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that electron spin rotation in nonmagnetic semiconductors during drift transport depends only on the physical path taken, enabling potential nanoscale spintronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to construct physical paths that produce specific spin rotations in semiconductor quantum wells at zero magnetic field.

Findings

Spin rotation depends solely on the transport path.

Constructed paths induce any desired spin rotation.

Spin decoherence during transport is negligible.

Abstract

We find that the electronic spin rotation induced by drift transport around a closed path in a wide variety of nonmagnetic semiconductors at zero magnetic field depends solely on the physical path taken. Physical paths that produce any possible spin rotation due to transport around a closed path are constructed for electrons experiencing strain or electric fields in (001), (110), or (111)-grown zincblende semiconductor quantum wells. Spin decoherence due to travel along the path is negligible compared to the background spin decoherence rate. The small size of the designed paths (<100 nm scale in GaAs) may lead to applications in nanoscale spintronic circuits.