Modulating Unpolarized Current in Quantum Spintronics: Visibility of Spin-Interference Effects in Multichannel Aharonov-Casher Mesoscopic Rings

TL;DR

This paper investigates how multichannel effects influence spin interference and conductance modulation in quantum rings with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, revealing that some interference effects persist despite increased channels.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of spin interference in quantum rings by analyzing multichannel transport effects and the conditions affecting conductance modulation.

Findings

Conductance does not reach zero in multichannel rings at any Rashba coupling value.

Some current modulation persists despite multiple conducting channels.

Destructive interference conditions vary across channels, affecting visibility.

Abstract

The conventional unpolarized current injected into a {\em quantum-coherent} semiconductor ring attached to two external leads can be modulated from perfect conductor to perfect insulator limit via Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling. This requires that ballistic propagation of electrons, whose spin precession is induced by the Aharonov-Casher phase, takes place through a single conducting channel ensuring that electronic quantum state remains a pure separable one in the course of transport. We study the fate of such spin interference effects as more than one orbital conducting channel becomes available for quantum transport. Although the conductance of multichannel rings, in general, does not go all the way to zero at any value of the SO coupling, some degree of current modulation survives. We analyze possible scenarios that can lead to reduced visibility of spin interference effects that are responsible for the zero conductance at particular values of the Rashba interaction: (i) the transmitted spin states remain fully coherent, but conditions for destructive interference are different in different channels; (ii) the transmitted spins end up in partially coherent quantum state arising from entanglement to the environment composed of orbital degrees of freedom of the same particle to which the spin is attached.