Pumping in a mesoscopic ring with Ahronov-Casher effect

R. Citro, F. Romeo

Published 2006-06-06Version 1

We investigate parametric pumping of spin and charge currents in a mesoscopic ring interrupted by a tunnel barrier in presence of Aharonov-Casher (AC) effect and Aharonov-Bohm (AB) flux along the axis of the same ring. Generation of a dc current is achieved by tuning the tunnel barrier strength and modulating in time either a radial(transverse) electric field or the magnetic flux. A pure spin current is generated by the interplay of breaking spin reversal symmetry, due to AC effect, and time-reversal symmetry breaking, intrinsic in parametric pumping procedure. We analyze the conditions for operating the AB-AC ring as a pure spin pump useful in spintronics and discuss generalization of our results to Rashba-gate-controlled rings.