No Arabic abstract
The effect of an ac electric field on quantum transport properties in a system of three quantum dots, two of which are connected in parallel while the third is coupled to one of the other two, is investigated theoretically. Based on the Keldysh nonequilibrium Greens function method, the spin-dependent current, occupation number and spin accumulation can be obtained in our model. An external magnetic flux, Rashba spin orbit coupling (SOC) and intradot Coulomb interactions are considered. The magnitude of the spin-dependent average current and the positions of the photon assisted tunneling (PAT) peaks can be accurately controlled and manipulated by simply varying the strength of the coupling and the frequency of the ac field. A particularly interesting result is the observation of a new kind of PAT peak and a multiple electron-photon pump effect that can generated and controlled by the coupling between the quantum dots. In addition, the spin occupation number and spin accumulation can be well controlled by the Rashba SOC and the magnetic flux.
We estimate the triplet-singlet relaxation rate due to spin-orbit coupling assisted by phonon emission in weakly-confined quantum dots. Our results for two and four electrons show that the different triplet-singlet relaxation trends observed in recent experiments under magnetic fields can be understood within a unified theoretical description, as the result of the competition between spin-orbit coupling and phonon emission efficiency. Moreover, we show that both effects are greatly affected by the strength of the confinement and the external magnetic field, which may give access to very long-lived triplet states as well as to selective population of the triplet Zeeman sublevels.
We consider a two-dimensional magnetic tunnel junction of the FM/I/QW(FM+SO)/I/N structure, where FM, I and QW(FM+SO) stand for a ferromagnet, an insulator and a quantum wire (QW) with both magnetic ordering and Rashba spin-orbit (SOC), respectively. The tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR) exhibits strong anisotropy and switches sign as the polarization direction varies relative to the QW axis, due to interplay among the one-dimensionality, the magnetic ordering, and the strong SOC of the QW. The results may provide a possible explanation for the sign-switching anisotropic TMR recently observed in the LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interface.
Kondo-type zero-bias anomalies have been frequently observed in quantum dots occupied by two electrons and attributed to a spin-triplet configuration that may become stable under particular circumstances. Conversely, zero-bias anomalies have been so far quite elusive when quantum dots are occupied by an even number of electrons greater than two, even though a spin-triplet configuration is more likely to be stabilized there than for two electrons. We propose as an origin of this phenomenon the spin-orbit interaction, and we show how it profoundly alters the conventional Kondo screening scenario in the simple case of a laterally confined quantum dot with four electrons.
We study the effects caused by Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling over the thermoelectric transport properties of a single-electron transistor, viz., a quantum dot connected to one-dimensional leads. Using linear response theory and employing the numerical renormalization group method, we calculate the thermopower, electrical and thermal conductances, dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit, and study the Wiedemann-Franz law, showing their temperature maps. Our results for all those properties indicate that spin-orbit coupling drives the system into the Kondo regime. We show that the thermoelectric transport properties, in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, obey the expected universality of the Kondo strong coupling fixed point. In addition, our results show a notable increase in the thermoelectric figure of merit, caused by the spin-orbit coupling in the one-dimensional quantum dot leads.
The comment by O. Entin-Wohlman, A. Aharony, and Y. Utsumi, on our paper S. Varela, I. Zambrano, B. Berche, V. Mujica, and E. Medina, Phys. Rev. B 101, 241410(R) (2020) makes a few points related to the validity of our model, especially in the light of the interpretation of Bardarsons theorem: in the presence of time reversal symmetry and for half-integral spin the transmission eigenvalues of the two terminal scattering matrix come in (Kramers) degenerate pairs. The authors of the comment first propose an ansatz for the wave function in the spin active region and go on to show that the resulting transmission does not show spin dependence, reasoning that spin dependence would violate Bardarsons assertion. Here we clearly show that the ansatz presented assumes spin-momentum independence from the outset and thus just addresses the spinless particle problem. We then find the appropriate eigenfunction contemplating spin-momentum coupling and show that the resulting spectrum obeys Bardarsons theorem. Finally we show that the allowed wavevectors are the ones assumed in the original paper and thus the original conclusions follow. We recognize that the Hamiltonian in our paper written in local coordinates on a helix was deceptively simple and offer the expressions of how it should be written to more overtly convey the physics involved. The relation between spin polarization and torque becomes clear, as described in our paper. This response is a very important clarification in relation to the implications of Bardarsons theorem concerning the possibility of spin polarization in one dimensional systems in the linear regime.