Spin-flip process through double quantum dots coupled to two half-metallic ferromagnetic leads

We investigate the spin-flip process through double quantum dots coupled to two half-metallic ferromagnetic leads in series. By means of the slave-boson mean-field approximation, we calculate the density of states in the Kondo regime for two different configurations of the leads. It is found that the transport shows some remarkable properties depending on the spin-flip strength. These effects may be useful in exploiting the role of electronic correlation in spintronics.     

Thermoelectric efficiency enhanced in a quantum dot with polarization leads,spin-flip and external magnetic field

We theoretically study the thermoelectric transport properties in a quantum dot system with two ferromagnetic leads, the spin-flip scattering and the external magnetic field. The results show that the spin polarization of the leads strongly influences thermoelectric coefficients of the device. For the parallel configuration the peak of figure of merit increases with the increase of polarization strength and non-collinear configuration trends to destroy the improvement of figure of merit induced by lead polarization. While the modulation of the spin-flip scattering on the figure of merit is effective only in the absence of external magnetic field or small magnetic field. In terms of improving the thermoelectric efficiency, the external magnetic field plays a more important role than spin-flip scattering. The thermoelectric efficiency can be significantly enhanced by the magnetic field for a given spin-flip scattering strength.     

Spin-dependent conductance in FM/quantum-dot/FM tunneling system

We present a theoretical study of the spin-dependent conductance spectra in a FM/semiconductor quantum-dot (QD)/FM system. Both the Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling in the QD and spin-flip scattering caused by magnetic barrier impurities are taken into account. It is found that in the single-level QD system with parallel magnetic moments in the two FM leads, due to the interference between different tunneling paths through the spin-degenerate level, a dip or a narrow resonant peak can appear in the conductance spectra, which depends on the property of the spin-flip scattering. When the magnetizations of the two FM leads are noncollinear, the resonant peak can be transformed into a dip. The Rashba SO coupling manifests itself by a Rashba phase factor, which changes the phase information of every tunneling path and can greatly modulate the conductance. When the QD has multiple levels, the Rashba interlevel spin-flip effect appears, which changes the topological property of the structure. Its interplay with the Rashba phase can directly tune the coupling strengths between dot and leads, and can result in switching from resonance into antiresonance in the conductance spectra.     

Spin-flip assisted tunneling through quantum dot based magnetic tunnel junctions

We theoretically study the spin-polarized transport through double barrier magnetic tunnel junction (DBMTJ) consisting of the quantum dot sandwiched by two ferromagnetic (FM) leads. The tunneling current through the DBMTJ is evaluated based on the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green’s function approach. The self-energy and Green’s function of the dot are analytically obtained via the equation of motion method, by systematically incorporating two spin-flip phenomena, namely, intra-dot spin-flip, and spin-flip coupling between the lead and the central dot region. The effects of both spin-flip processes on the spectral functions, tunneling current and tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) are analyzed. The spin-flip effects result in spin mixing, thus contributing to the spectral function of the off-diagonal Green’s function components ( G_s[`(s)] ^r )\left( {G_{\sigma \bar \sigma }^r } \right). Interestingly, the spin-flip coupling between the lead and dot enhances both the tunneling current and the TMR for applied bias above the threshold voltage V _th . On the other hand, the intra-dot spin-flip results in an additional step in the I-V characteristics near V _th . Additionally, it suppresses the tunneling current but enhances the TMR. The opposing effects of the two types of spin-flip on the tunneling current means that one spin-flip mechanism can be engineered to counteract the other, so as to maintain the tunneling current without reducing the TMR. Their additive effect on the TMR enables the DBMTJ to attain a large tunneling current and high TMR for above threshold bias values.     

Spin-flip mesoscopic transport through a quantum dot coupled to carbon nanotube terminals

We investigate mesoscopic transport through a system that consists of a central quantum dot (QD) and two single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCN) leads in the presence of a rotating magnetic field. The spin-flip effect is induced by the rotating magnetic field, and the tunnelling current is sensitively related to the spin-flip effect. We present the calculations of charge and spin current components to show the intimate relations to the SWCN leads. Zeeman effect is important when the applied magnetic field is strong enough. The current characteristics are quite different when the source-drain bias is zero (eV=0) and nonzero (eV≠0). The asymmetric peak and valley of spin current versus gate voltage exhibit Fano resonance. Multi-resonant peaks of spin current versus photon energy ħω reflect the structure of CN quantum wires, as well as the resonant photon absorption and emission effect. The matching-mismatching of channels in the CN leads and QD results in novel spin current structure by tuning the frequency.     

Behavior of the hadron potential at large distances and properties of the hadron spin-flip amplitude

The impact of the form of the hadron potential at large distances on the behavior of the hadron spin-flip amplitude at small angles is examined. The t-dependence of the spin-flip amplitude of high-energy hadron elastic scattering is analyzed under different assumptions on the hadron interaction. It is shown that the long tail of the nonGaussian form of the hadron potential of the hadron interaction in the impact parameter representation leads to a large value of the slope of the spin-flip amplitude (without the kinematical factor ) as compared with the slope of the spin-nonflip amplitude. This effect can explain the form of the differential cross-section and the analyzing power at small transfer momenta. The methods for the definition of the spin-dependent part of the hadron scattering amplitude are presented. A possibility to investigate the structure of the hadron spin-flip amplitude from the accurate measure of the differential cross-section and the spin correlation parameters is shown. Received: 14 December 2001 / Accepted: 17 January 2002     

Effects of spin relaxation on electron tunneling through single discrete levels in magnetic tunnel junctions

Electron tunneling through a single discrete level of a quantum dot, coupled to two ferromagnetic leads, is studied theoretically in the sequential tunneling regime. Electron correlations and spin relaxation processes on the dot are taken into account. It is shown that strong Coulomb correlations can enhance tunnel magnetoresistance in a certain bias range. The effect, however, is suppressed by spin-flip processes.     

Spin-flip scattering of conduction electrons by dislocations in a metal

The spin-flip scattering of conduction electrons by dislocations in metals with a strong spin-orbit coupling is considered. Calculations are performed in terms of the model spin-orbit potential describing the spin-flip scattering of conduction electrons. It is shown that deformation of the crystal lattice in a metal leads to a change in the structure factor. The core of a rectilinear edge dislocation is calculated by the molecular dynamics method. The results obtained are compared with the experimental data on conduction-electron spin resonance (CESR) in copper.     

Q-switch pumped InSb spin-flip raman laser action under pulsed electric field conditions

Temporal synchronization of a Q-switch spin-flip Raman laser pulse (SFR) with a voltage pulse across an InSb sample leads to an enhancement of the Stokes output and to a shortening of the spin-flip pulse duration. During the end of the voltage pulse with a fall time ? 30 ns, the Stokes output power increased by a factor 2–3 while the SFR pulse duration decreased to 50 ns.     

Tunable spin current through a T-shaped double quantum dot molecule

We present a spin current generator based on a T-shaped double quantum dot (TDQD) molecule connected with two leads, and the coherent spin-flip effect is taken into account within the TDQD. The spin current from the right output terminal is obtained, more importantly, the properties of the spin current are investigated in detail, these results offer us a way to manipulate the spin current with the system parameters.     

Spin-flip effect on electrical transport in magnetic quantum wire systems

We investigate the spin-flip effect on electronic transport in a nanostructure composed of two nonmagnetic (NM) leads separated by a periodic spacer. The spacer is composed of one-dimensional heterostructure formed by a sequence of magnetic (A) and nonmagnetic (B) sites periodically juxtaposed (as in a typical periodic quantum dot (QD)). The calculations are based on the tight-binding model and transfer matrix method, which compute the current–voltage characteristic within the Landauer–Büttiker formalism. Our main goal is to assess the contribution of the spin-flip scattering to the transport properties of such systems. The spin-dependent transport behavior can be controlled via a gate magnetic field and an applied voltage in the ballistic regime. Our results show that the conductance strongly depends on the configurations of the magnetic QD. The application of the predicted results may be useful in designing spin-valve devices, such as spin-polarized molecular transistors.     

Phonon-mediated electron-spin phase diffusion in a quantum dot

An effective spin relaxation mechanism that leads to electron spin decoherence in a quantum dot is proposed. In contrast with the common calculations of spin-flip transitions between the Kramers doublets, we take into account a process of phonon-mediated fluctuation in the electron spin preces-sion and subsequent spin phase diffusion. Specifically, we consider modulations in the longitudinal g factor and hyperfine interaction induced by the phonon-assisted transitions between the lowest electronic states. Prominent differences in the temperature and magnetic field dependence between the proposed mechanism and the spin-flip transitions are expected to facilitate its experimental verification. Numerical estimation demonstrates highly efficient spin relaxation in typical semiconductor quantum dots.     

Spin-flip effects in a parallel-coupled double quantum dot molecule

We investigate theoretically the electronic transport through a parallel-coupled double quantum dot (DQD) molecule attached to metallic electrodes, in which the spin-flip scattering on each quantum dot is considered. Special attention is paid to the effects of the intradot spin-flip processes on the linear conductance by using the equation of motion approach for Green’s functions. When a weak spin-flip scattering on each quantum dot is present, the single Fano peak splits into two Fano peaks, and the Breit–Wigner resonance may be suppressed slightly. When the spin-flip scattering strength on each quantum dot becomes strong, the linear conductance spectrum consists of two Breit–Wigner peaks and two Fano peaks due to the quantum interference effects. The positions and shapes of these resonant peaks can be controlled by using the magnetic flux through the quantum device.     

Tuning the bottleneck effect in Ag metallic host doped with magnetic Gd and non-magnetic Sb ions

The Ag metallic host doped with Gd and Sb is an excellent model system to study the bottleneck effect associated to the conduction-electron (c-e) spin-flip scattering mechanism. Electron spin resonance of Gd³⁺ in both, Ag-(Gd doped)- and Ag-(Gd and Sb doped)-systems, reveal the presence of bottleneck which can be tuned by the amount of Gd and Sb impurities. The increase of the Gd concentration leads to a c-e spin-flip relaxation rate to the magnetic Gd³⁺ ions larger than that to the lattice, favoring the bottleneck regime. Whereas the effect of the non-magnetic impurities (Sb ions) is to increase, via spin–orbit scattering, the spin-flip relaxation rate of the c-e to the lattice, weakening the bottleneck regime.     

Effect of spin-flip scattering on electrical transport in magnetic tunnel junctions

By means of the nonequilibrium Green function technique, the effect of spin-flip scatterings on the spin-dependent electrical transport in ferromagnet–insulator–ferromagnet (FM–I–FM) tunnel junctions is investigated. It is shown that Jullière's formula for the tunnel conductance must be modified when including the contribution from the spin-flip scatterings. It is found that the spin-flip scatterings could lead to an angular shift of the tunnel conductance, giving rise to the junction resistance not being the largest when the orientations of magnetizations in the two FM electrodes are antiparallel, which may offer an alternative explanation for such a phenomenon observed previously in experiments in some FM–I–FM junctions. The spin-flip assisted tunneling is also observed.     

光电负反馈下垂直腔表面发射激光器偏振开关特性研究

基于扩展的自旋反转模型, 对光电负反馈下垂直腔表面发射激光器的偏振开关特性进行了数值仿真和理论分析. 研究结果表明: 对于不同的自旋反转率, 反馈强度和延迟时间对激光器偏振开关特性产生较大影响.在慢自旋反转率下运行时, 随着反馈强度的增加, 开关点电流呈线性增加, 导致X偏振模被压缩, 这与报道的基于各向同性光反馈的情景相反, 产生这一现象的原因是由于光电负反馈提高了X偏振模的阈值; 延迟时间对开关点电流的影响随反馈强度的变化而不同.在快自旋反转率下运行时, 反馈强度对开关点电流的影响与慢自旋反转率时的情形不同, 开关点电流经历先增加后减小的过程, 开关点电流受反馈强度的影响更加敏感; 而延迟时间的影响规律和慢自旋反转率时相似. 此外, 还发现自发辐射噪声对激光器偏振开关特性有较大影响. 关键词： 垂直腔表面发射激光器 偏振开关 光电负反馈 自发辐射噪声     

Spin-flip processes and ultrafast magnetization dynamics in Co: Unifying the microscopic and macroscopic view of femtosecond magnetism

The femtosecond magnetization dynamics of a thin cobalt film excited with ultrashort laser pulses has been studied using two complementary pump-probe techniques, namely, spin-, energy-, and time-resolved photoemission and the time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect. Combining the two methods, it is possible to identify the microscopic electron spin-flip mechanisms responsible for the ultrafast macroscopic magnetization dynamics of the cobalt film. In particular, we show that electron-magnon excitation does not affect the overall magnetization even though it is an efficient spin-flip channel on the sub-200 fs time scale. Instead, we find experimental evidence for the relevance of Elliott-Yafet-type spin-flip processes for the ultrafast demagnetization taking place on a time scale of 300 fs.     

Positive cross correlations in a three-terminal quantum dot with ferromagnetic contacts

We study current fluctuations in an interacting three-terminal quantum dot with ferromagnetic leads. For appropriately polarized contacts, the transport through the dot is governed by dynamical spin blockade, i.e., a spin-dependent bunching of tunneling events not present in the paramagnetic case. This leads, for instance, to positive zero-frequency cross correlations of the currents in the output leads even in the absence of spin accumulation on the dot. We include the influence of spin-flip scattering and identify favorable conditions for the experimental observation of this effect with respect to polarization of the contacts and tunneling rates.     

Intradot spin-flip Andreev reflection tunneling through a ferromagnet-quantum dot-superconductor system with ac field

We investigate Andreev reflection (AR) tunneling through a ferromagnet-quantum dot-superconductor (F-QD-S) system in the presence of an external ac field. The intradot spin-flip scattering in the QD is involved. Using the nonequilibrium Green function and BCS quasiparticle spectrum for superconductor, time-averaged AR conductance is formulated. The competition between the intradot spin-flip scattering and photon-assisted tunneling dominates the resonant behaviors of the time-averaged AR conductance. For weak intradot spin-flip scattering strengths, the AR conductance shows a series of equal interval resonant levels. However, the single-peak at main resonant level develops into a well-resolved double-peak resonance at a strong intradot spin-flip scattering strength. Remarkable, multiple-photon-assisted tunneling that generates photonic sideband peaks with a variable interval has been found. In addition, the AR conductance-bias voltage characteristic shows a transition between the single-peak to double-peak resonance as the ratio of the two tunneling strengths varies.     

The Andreev tunneling behaviors in the FM/QD/SC system with intradot spin-flip scattering

The resonant behaviors of spin-dependent linear AR conductance, the spin-dependent AR current, the electron occupation number and spin accumulation in the QD are theoretically investigated in the FM/QD/SC system with intradot spin-flip scattering. The novel resonant behaviors of spin-dependent AR conductance versus Fermi energy are revealed, which are rather different from the AR conductance versus the dot's energy level case [Cao et al., Phys. Rev. B 70 (2004) 235341]. It is proved that the split of the resonant peak can be induced by the competition between the coupling strengths to the FM and SC leads, the intradot spin-flip scattering, and the gate voltage. The number, the widths, and the distance of the peaks could be controlled by tuning the relevant parameters. The resonance of AR current can take place only when the energy level of QD lines up with the right lead chemical potential and blows the left lead chemical potential. The magnitude of the resonant AR current depends on the number of resonant levels involved in the Andreev tunneling process. It is also proved that the spin-flip scattering can suppress the spin accumulation effectively, and induce the spin polarization of AR conductance and AR current simultaneously. The results make us understand better the fundamental in this system, and are useful for the design of spintronic devices.