Spontaneous Spin-Polarization of Ballistic Electrons in Single Mode Quantum Wires due to Spin-Splitting

We show that a quantum wire device with spin splitting can work as an active spin polarizer. Hot electrons in one ‘spin’ subband (e.g. ‘spin-up’) may pass such a device with weak electron pair scattering, while electrons in the opposite subband (‘spindown’) may have high conversion probability into the ‘spin-up’ subband, resulting in spin polarization of a hot electron beam. Under different circumstances a hot electron beam passing through a single mode quantum wire may induce a steady state magnetization of the background electron gas in a section of the wire weakly coupled to the environment.