Equivalent circuits for two‐state quantum systems

Abstract

AbstractThe development of nanocircuits designed to ultimately interact with classical electromagnetic environments demands a description of their performance in circuit terms, i.e. in terms of voltages and currents for incident, reflected and transmitted waves. A class of quantum systems which are particularly promising for applications (e.g. in spintronics) and at the same time easy to analyse and to understand physically are the two‐state systems. Here, we present equivalent circuits for a generic two‐state quantum system imbedded in a one‐port or two‐port structure guiding a linearly polarized electromagnetic wave. For the sake of concreteness we explicitly refer to a system of spin ½ particles whose magnetic moments are aligned with the axis of the guiding structure by a strong constant magnetic field; but the formalism can be easily extended to particles endowed with electric dipole moments or any other system with two degrees of freedom. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.