Pumping spin with electrical fields

Abstract

Spin currents can be obtained through adiabatic pumping by means of electrical gating only. This is possible by making use of the tunability of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling in semiconductor heterostructures. We demonstrate the principles of this effect by considering a single-channel wire with a constriction. We also consider realistic structures, consisting of several open channels where subband spin-mixing and disorder are present, and we confirm our predictions. Two different ways to detect the spin-pumping effect, either using ferromagnetic leads or applying a magnetic field, are discussed.