On the environmental decoherence and spin interference in mesoscopic loop structures

Mechanisms of ‘environmental decoherence’ such as surface scattering, Elliot–Yafet process and precession mechanisms, as well as their influence on the spin phase relaxation are considered and compared. It is shown that the ‘spin ballistic’ regime is possible, when the phase relaxation length for the spin part of the wave function (L^(s)) is much greater than the phase relaxation length for the ‘orbital part’ (L^(e)). In the presence of an additional magnetic field, the spin part of the electron's wave function (WF) acquires a phase shift due to additional spin precession about that field. If the structure length L is chosen to be L^(s)>L>L^(e), it is possible to ‘wash out’ the quantum interference related to the phase coherence of the ‘orbital part’ of the WF, retaining at the same time that related to the phase coherence of the spin part and, hence, to reveal corresponding conductance oscillations.