Persistent spin currents in mesoscopic Heisenberg rings

We show that at low temperatures T an inhomogeneous radial magnetic field with magnitude B gives rise to a persistent magnetization current around a mesoscopic ferromagnetic Heisenberg ring. Under optimal conditions, this spin current can be as large as gmicro(B)(T/ variant Planck's over 2pi )exp([-2pi(gmicro(B)B/delta)(1/2)], as obtained from leading-order spin-wave theory. Here g is the gyromagnetic factor, micro(B) is the Bohr magneton, and delta is the energy gap between the ground-state and the first spin-wave excitation. The magnetization current endows the ring with an electric dipole moment.     

Persistent currents in mesoscopic rings

The discrepancy between measured values of the persistent current in mesoscopic rings and theoretical calculations based upon the model of independent electrons moving in a random potential is discussed. Some attempts at including the Coulomb interaction between electrons are reviewed, and results of model calculations are presented.     

Non-Gaussian fluctuations of mesoscopic persistent currents

The persistent current in an ensemble of normal-metal rings shows Gaussian distributed sample-to-sample fluctuations with non-Gaussian corrections, which are precursors of the transition into the Anderson localized regime. We here report a calculation of the leading non-Gaussian correction to the current autocorrelation function, which is of third-order in the current. Although the third-order correlation function is small, inversely proportional to the dimensionless conductance g of the ring, the mere fact that it is nonzero is remarkable, since it is an odd moment of the current distribution.     

Persistent currents in mesoscopic connected rings

We report measurements of the low temperature magnetic response of a line of 16 GaAs/GaAlAs connected mesoscopic rings whose total length is much larger than l(straight phi). Using an on-chip micro-SQUID technology, we have measured a periodic response, with period h/e, corresponding to persistent currents in the rings of a typical amplitude of 0.40+/-0.08 nA per ring. Direct comparison with measurements on the same rings but isolated is presented.     

Photoinduced charge currents in mesoscopic rings

The temporal and spatial controllability of charge distribution in submicron structures opens new avenues for potential applications and for the understanding of nonequilibrium processes. Here we suggest a novel way to trigger and control within picoseconds charge currents and magnetic moments in nanoscopic and mesoscopic ring structures by applying two shaped, time-delayed light pulses. Our quantum dynamic calculations show that the magnitude and direction of the induced currents are tunable by varying the time delay and strengths of the pulses. Furthermore, in an array of rings desirable magnetic orders are generated depending on the ring sizes and particle number.     

Persistent currents in one-dimensional aperiodic mesoscopic rings

In the tight-binding approximation, we have investigated the behaviour of persistent currents in a one-dimensional Thue-Morse mesoscopic ring threaded by a magnetic flux. By applying a transfer-matrix technique, the energy spectra and the persistent currents in the system have been numerically calculated. It is shown that the flux-dependent eigenenergies form “band” structures and the energy gaps will enlarge if the site energy increases. Actually, the site energy and the filling-up number of electrons are two important factors which have much influence upon the persistent current. Increment of the site energy in the system will lead to a dramatic suppression of the currents. When the highest-occupied energy level is on the top of the band, the total current is limited; otherwise, the persistent current increases by several orders of magnitude. Generally, this kind of large scale change in the magnitude of the current can easily be observed in the vicinity of band gaps. The parity effect in the Thue-Morse ring is also discussed. Received 22 January 2001 and Received in final form 25 October 2001     

Giant persistent currents in quasiperiodic mesoscopic rings

Giant persistent currents that occur in quasiperiodic Thue–Morse array of mesoscopic rings are proposed. As the order of the system increases, the maximum persistent current increases exponentially. The giant persistent current in a system with higher order is greater than that in traditional structures. It is found that the maximum persistent current occurs in the ring near the middle position of the array. The persistent current is also proportional to the sharpness of the transport resonance, which is dependent on the width of the allowed band in the bandstructure. A rule to determine the occurrence energy of the giant persistent currents for a system with arbitrary order is also proposed.     

Screening of persistent currents in mesoscopic metal rings

The effect of the Coulomb-interaction on persistent currents in disordered mesoscopic metal rings threaded by a magnetic flux φ is studied numerically. We use the simplest form of self-consistent Hartree theory, where the spatial variations of the self-consistent Hartree potential are ignored. In this approximation the self-consistent Hartree energies are simply obtained by diagonalizing the non-interacting system via the Lanczos method and then calculating the (disorderdependent) particle number on the ring self-consistently. In the diffusive regime we find that the variance of the total particle number is strongly reduced, in agreement with the prediction of the random-phase approximation. On the other hand, the variance of the number of energy levels in a small interval below the Fermi energy is not affected by the Coulomb interaction. We argue that this implies that the experimentally observed enhancement of the persistent current is due to long-range Coulomb interactions.     

Stochastic fluctuations of persistent currents in mesoscopic rings

We investigate systematically the effect of the electronic Coulomb interaction on the stochastic fluctuations (from sample to sample) in the persistent currents I(Φ) of mesoscopic rings threaded by a magnetic flux Φ. In contrast to our recent publication [Europhys. Lett. 18 (1992) 457], we avoid separation of impurity and interaction scattering events and we present here a comprehensive view. By this alternative procedure, we are able to confirm our earlier result, namely that 〈I²〉^1/2 ～ ev_F/L, which is a much larger quantity than the average current 〈I〉 ～ ev_Fl/L².     

Zero-dimensional spin accumulation and spin dynamics in a mesoscopic metal island

We have measured electron spin accumulation at 4.2 K and at room temperature in an aluminum island with all dimensions (400 nm x 400 nm x 30 nm) smaller than the spin relaxation length. For the first time, we obtain uniform spin accumulation in a four-terminal lateral device with a magnitude exceeding the Ohmic resistance in the island. By controlling the magnetization directions of the four magnetic electrodes that contact the island, we have performed a detailed study of the spin accumulation. Spin precession measurements confirm the uniformity of our system and provide an accurate method to extract the spin relaxation time.     

Nonexistence of intrinsic spin currents

We describe the electron spin dynamics in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and disorder using the spin-density matrix method. We show that in the Born approximation in the scattering amplitude the spin current is zero for an arbitrary ratio of the spin-orbit splitting and the scattering rate. Various types of the disorder potential are studied. We argue that the bulk spin current always depends explicitly on scattering by impurities. In this sense universal intrinsic spin current does not exist.     

On local and global currents in mesoscopic conductors

Using linear response theory we show that, in a quasi-stationary state, the local multiprobe conductance of a mesoscopic system of non-interacting electrons with a time reversal invariant Hamiltonian does not depend on the local shape of the driving self-consistent potential and thus is entirely determined by the asymptotic values of the potential in the leads. In the ballistic limit, the local conductance in the lateral direction exhibits oscillations depending on the occupation of channels. Scattering by a point impurity leads to softening of the quantized global conductance steps. In addition to that for an attractive scattering potential, a dip occurs in each plateau regime the shape of which is calculated for different values of the potential strength. We also investigate the local conductance for both a point scatterer and a finite scattering region.