No Arabic abstract
We have studied the spin dynamics of a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system in a GaAs/Al_{0.3}Ga_{0.7}As single quantum well by time-resolved Faraday rotation and time-resolved Kerr rotation in dependence on the initial degree of spin polarization, P, of the electrons. By increasing the initial spin polarization from the low-P regime to a significant P of several percent, we find that the spin dephasing time, $T_2^ast$, increases from about 20 ps to 200 ps; Moreover, $T_2^ast$ increases with temperature at small spin polarization but decreases with temperature at large spin polarization. All these features are in good agreement with theoretical predictions by Weng and Wu [Phys. Rev. B {bf 68}, 075312 (2003)]. Measurements as a function of spin polarization at fixed electron density are performed to further confirm the theory. A fully microscopic calculation is performed by setting up and numerically solving the kinetic spin Bloch equations, including the Dyakonov-Perel and the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanisms, with {em all} the scattering explicitly included. We reproduce all principal features of the experiments, i.e., a dramatic decrease of spin dephasing with increasing $P$ and the temperature dependences at different spin polarizations.
We have studied spin dephasing and spin diffusion in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system, embedded in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well grown in the [110] direction, by a two-beam Hanle experiment. For very low excitation density, we observe spin lifetimes of more than 16 ns, which rapidly decrease as the pump intensity is increased. Two mechanisms contribute to this decrease: the optical excitation produces holes, which lead to a decay of electron spin via the Bir-Aranov-Pikus mechanism and recombination with spin-polarized electrons. By scanning the distance between the pump and probe beams, we observe the diffusion of spin-polarized electrons over more than 20 microns. For high pump intensity, the spin polarization in a distance of several microns from the pump beam is larger than at the pump spot, due to the reduced influence of photogenerated holes.
Understanding the spin dynamics in semiconductor heterostructures is highly important for future semiconductor spintronic devices. In high-mobility two-dimensional electron systems (2DES), the spin lifetime strongly depends on the initial degree of spin polarization due to the electron-electron interaction. The Hartree-Fock (HF) term of the Coulomb interaction acts like an effective out-of-plane magnetic field and thus reduces the spin-flip rate. By time-resolved Faraday rotation (TRFR) techniques, we demonstrate that the spin lifetime is increased by an order of magnitude as the initial spin polarization degree is raised from the low-polarization limit to several percent. We perform control experiments to decouple the excitation density in the sample from the spin polarization degree and investigate the interplay of the internal HF field and an external perpendicular magnetic field. The lifetime of spins oriented in the plane of a [001]-grown 2DES is strongly anisotropic if the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit fields are of the same order of magnitude. This anisotropy, which stems from the interference of the Rashba and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit fields, is highly density-dependent: as the electron density is increased, the kubic Dresselhaus term becomes dominant and reduces the anisotropy.
In a high mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well we observe a strong magnetoresistance. In lowering the electron density the magnetoresistance gets more pronounced and reaches values of more than 300%. We observe that the huge magnetoresistance vanishes for increasing the temperature. An additional density dependent factor is introduced to be able to fit the parabolic magnetoresistance to the electron-electron interaction correction.
We study the optically induced spin polarization, spin dephasing and diffusion in several high-mobility two-dimensional electron systems, which are embedded in GaAs quantum wells grown on (110)-oriented substrates. The experimental techniques comprise a two-beam magneto-optical spectroscopy system and polarization-resolved photoluminescence. Under weak excitation conditions at liquid-helium temperatures, we observe spin lifetimes above 100 ns in one of our samples, which are reduced with increasing excitation density due to additional, hole-mediated, spin dephasing. The spin dynamic is strongly influenced by the carrier density and the ionization of remote donors, which can be controlled by temperature and above-barrier illumination. The absolute value of the average electron spin polarization in the samples is directly observable in the circular polarization of photoluminescence collected under circularly polarized excitation and reaches values of about 5 percent. Spin diffusion is studied by varying the distance between pump and probe beams in micro-spectroscopy experiments. We observe diffusion lengths above 100 $mu$m and, at high excitation intensity, a nonmonotonic dependence of the spin polarization on the pump-probe distance.
Utilizing time-resolved Kerr rotation techniques, we have investigated the spin dynamics of a high mobility, low density two dimensional electron gas in a GaAs/Al0:35Ga0:65As heterostructure in dependence on temperature from 1.5 K to 30 K. It is found that the spin relaxation/dephasing time under a magnetic field of 0.5 T exhibits a maximum of 3.12 ns around 14 K, superimposed on an increasing background with rising temperature. The appearance of the maximum is ascribed to that at the temperature where the crossover from the degenerate to the nondegenerate regime takes place, electron-electron Coulomb scattering becomes strongest, and thus inhomogeneous precession broadening due to Dyakonov-Perel(DP) mechanism becomes weakest. These results agree with the recent theoretical predictions [Zhou et al., PRB 75, 045305 (2007)], verifying the importance of electron-electron Coulomb scattering to electron spin relaxation/dephasing.