Spin-guides and spin-splitters: Waveguide analogies in one-dimensional spin chains

Here we show a direct mapping between waveguide theory and spin chain transport, opening an alternative approach to quantum information transport in the solid-state. By applying temporally varying control profiles to a spin chain, we design a virtual waveguide or 'spin-guide' to conduct individual spin excitations along defined space-time trajectories of the chain. We explicitly show that the concepts of confinement, adiabatic bend loss and beamsplitting can be mapped from optical waveguide theory to spin-guides (and hence 'spin-splitters'). Importantly, the spatial scale of applied control pulses is required to be large compared to the inter-spin spacing, and thereby allowing the design of scalable control architectures.