Detection of spin polarized currents in quantum point contacts via transverse electron focusing

It has been predicted recently that an electron beam can be polarized when it flows adiabatically through a quantum point contact in a system with spin-orbit interaction. Here, we show that a simple transverse electron focusing setup can be used to detect such polarized current. It uses the amplitude’s asymmetry of the spin-split transverse electron focusing peak to extract information about the electron’s spin polarization. On the other hand, and depending on the quantum point contact geometry, including this one-body effect can be important when using the focusing setup to study many-body effects in quantum point contacts.