Photon-assisted electronic and spin transport in a junction containing precessing molecular spin

Abstract

We study the ac charge and -spin transport through an orbital of a magnetic molecule with spin precessing in a constant magnetic field. We assume that the source and drain contacts have time-dependent chemical potentials. We employ the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green’s functions method to calculate the spin and charge currents to linear order in the time-dependent potentials. The molecular and electronic spins are coupled via exchange interaction. The time-dependent molecular spin drives inelastic transitions between the molecular quasienergy levels, resulting in a rich structure in the transport characteristics. The time-dependent voltages allow us to reveal the internal precession time scale (the Larmor frequency) by a dc conductance measurement if the ac frequency matches the Larmor frequency. In the low-ac-frequency limit the junction resembles a classical electric circuit. Furthermore, we show that the setup can be used to generate dc-spin currents, which are controlled by the molecular magnetization direction and the relative phases between the Larmor precession and the ac voltage.