Spin filtering in all-electrical three-terminal interferometers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how all-electrical three-terminal interferometers can generate and control spin polarization in electrons, even with time-reversal invariant spin-orbit interactions, through analytical solutions and potential applications to chiral molecules.

Contribution

It provides analytical solutions showing spin polarization generation in three-terminal interferometers and explains recent experimental observations in chiral molecules.

Findings

Electrons in a diamond interferometer can be fully spin-polarized along tunable directions.

A single helical molecule can induce significant spin polarization in passing electrons.

Average polarization remains non-zero even with incoherent mixing into a single reservoir.

Abstract

Unlike the two-terminal device, in which the time-reversal invariant spin-orbit interaction alone cannot polarize the spins, such a polarization can be generated when electrons from one source reservoir flow into two (or more) separate drain reservoirs. We present analytical solutions for two examples. First, we demonstrate that the electrons transmitted through a "diamond" interferometer into two drains can be simultaneously fully spin-polarized along different tunable directions, even when the two arms of the interferometer are not identical. Second, we show that a single helical molecule attached to more than one drain can induce a significant spin polarization in electrons passing through it. The average polarization remains non-zero even when the electrons outgoing into separate leads are eventually mixed incoherently into one absorbing reservoir. This may explain recent experiments on spin selectivity of certain helical-chiral molecules.