Spin-Polarized Transport through Quantum Dots in the Cotunneling Regime

Abstract

The spin-polarized transport through two-level quantum dots weakly coupled to ferromagnetic leads is considered theoretically in the Coulomb blockade regime. It is assumed that the dot is doubly occupied, so that the current flows due to cotunneling through singlet and triplet states of the dot. It is shown that, by sweeping the bias voltage, one can induce a singlet–triplet transition, which depends on the magnetic configuration of the system and leads to nontrivial bias dependence of both the differential conductance and tunnel magnetoresistance.