Frequency shifts and relaxation rates for spin 1/2 particles moving in electromagnetic fields

We discuss the behaviour of the Larmor frequency shift and the longitudinal relaxation rate due to non-uniform electromagnetic fields on an assembly of spin 1/2 particles, in adiabatic and nonadiabatic regimes. We also show some general relations between the various frequency shifts and between the frequency shifts and relaxation rates. The remarkable feature of all our results is that they were obtained without any specific assumptions on the explicit form of the correlation functions of the fields. Hence, we expect that our results are valid both for diffusive and ballistic regime of motion and arbitrary cell shapes and surface scattering. These results can then be applied to a wide variety of realistic systems

Complete spin polarization of electrons in semiconductor layers and quantum dots

We demonstrate that non-equilibrium electrons in thin nonmagnetic semiconductor layers or quantum dots can be fully spin polarized by means of simultaneous electrical spin injection and extraction. The complete spin polarization is achieved if the thin layers or quantum dots are placed between two ferromagnetic metal contacts with moderate spin injection coefficients and antiparallel magnetizations. The sign of the spin polarization is determined by the direction of the current. Aplications of this effect in spintronics and quantum information processing are discussed