TY - JOUR
T1 - Spin precession in spin-orbit coupled weak links
T2 - Coulomb repulsion and Pauli quenching
AU - Shekhter, R. I.
AU - Entin-Wohlman, O.
AU - Jonson, M.
AU - Aharony, A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments. We thank the Computational Science Research Center in Beijing for hospitality that allowed for the accomplishment of this project. R.I.S. and M.J. thank the IBS Center for Theoretical Physics of Complex Systems, Daejeon, Republic of Korea, and O.E.-W. and A.A. thank the Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg, for hospitality. This work was partially supported by the Swedish Research Council (VR), by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), and by the infrastructure program of Israel Ministry of Science and Technology under Contract No. 3-11173.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 American Physical Society.
PY - 2017/12/26
Y1 - 2017/12/26
N2 - A simple model for the transmission of pairs of electrons through a weak electric link in the form of a nanowire made of a material with strong electron spin-orbit interaction (SOI) is presented, with emphasis on the effects of Coulomb interactions and the Pauli exclusion principle. The constraints due to the Pauli principle are shown to "quench" the coherent SOI-induced precession of the spins when the spatial wave packets of the two electrons overlap significantly. The quenching, which results from the projection of the pair's spin states onto spin-up and spin-down states on the link, breaks up the coherent propagation in the link into a sequence of coherent hops that add incoherently. Applying the model to the transmission of Cooper pairs between two superconductors, we find that in spite of Pauli quenching, the Josephson current oscillates with the strength of the SOI, but may even change its sign (compared to the limit of the Coulomb blockade, when the quenching is absent). Conditions for an experimental detection of these features are discussed.
AB - A simple model for the transmission of pairs of electrons through a weak electric link in the form of a nanowire made of a material with strong electron spin-orbit interaction (SOI) is presented, with emphasis on the effects of Coulomb interactions and the Pauli exclusion principle. The constraints due to the Pauli principle are shown to "quench" the coherent SOI-induced precession of the spins when the spatial wave packets of the two electrons overlap significantly. The quenching, which results from the projection of the pair's spin states onto spin-up and spin-down states on the link, breaks up the coherent propagation in the link into a sequence of coherent hops that add incoherently. Applying the model to the transmission of Cooper pairs between two superconductors, we find that in spite of Pauli quenching, the Josephson current oscillates with the strength of the SOI, but may even change its sign (compared to the limit of the Coulomb blockade, when the quenching is absent). Conditions for an experimental detection of these features are discussed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85039412627&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevB.96.241412
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevB.96.241412
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85039412627
VL - 96
JO - Physical Review B
JF - Physical Review B
SN - 2469-9950
IS - 24
M1 - 241412
ER -