Production, storage and release of spin currents in quantum circuits

Abstract: Quantum rings connected to ballistic circuits couple strongly to external magnetic fields if the connection is not symmetric. By analytical theory and computer simulation I show that properly connected rings can be used to pump currents in the wires giving raise to a number of interesting new phenomena. One can pump spin polarized currents into the wires by using rotating magnetic fields or letting the ring rotate around the wire. This method works without any need for the spin-orbit interaction, and without stringent requirements about the conduction band filling. On the other hand, another method works at half filling using a time-dependent magnetic field in the plane of the (fixed) ring. This can be used to pump a pure spin current, excited by the the spin-orbit interaction in the ring. One can use magnetizable bodies as storage units to concentrate and save the magnetization in much the same way as capacitors store electric charge. The polarization obtained in this way can then be used on command to produce spin currents in a wire. These currents show interesting oscillations while the storage units exchange their polarizations and the intensity and amplitude of the oscillations can controlled by tuning the conductance of the wire used to connect the units.