Controlled spatial separation of spins and coherent dynamics in spin-orbit-coupled nanostructures

Abstract

The spatial separation of electron spins followed by the control of their individual spin dynamics has recently emerged as an essential ingredient in many proposals for spin-based technologies because it would enable both of the two spin species to be simultaneously utilized, distinct from most of the current spintronic studies and technologies wherein only one spin species could be handled at a time. Here we demonstrate that the spatial spin splitting of a coherent beam of electrons can be achieved and controlled using the interplay between an external magnetic field and Rashba spin–orbit interaction in semiconductor nanostructures. The technique of transverse magnetic focusing is used to detect this spin separation. More notably, our ability to engineer the spin–orbit interactions enables us to simultaneously manipulate and probe the coherent spin dynamics of both spin species and hence their correlation, which could open a route towards spintronics and spin-based quantum information processing.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Lo, S.T. Chen, C.H. Fan, J.C. Smith, L.W. Creeth, G.L. Chang, C.W. Pepper, M. Griffiths, J.P. Farrer, I. Beere, H.E. Jones, G.A.C. Ritchie, D.A. Chen, T.M.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2017. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords:	Electronic and spintronic devices; Electronic devices; Spintronics
Dates:	Published: 10 July 2017 Published (online): 10 July 2017 Accepted: 17 May 2017
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering (Sheffield)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	31 Jul 2017 09:52
Last Modified:	31 Jul 2017 09:55
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15997
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1038/ncomms15997
Related URLs:	Author
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:119647

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Controlled spatial separation of spins and coherent dynamics in spin-orbit-coupled nanostructures

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