Negative longitudinal magnetoresistances (NLMRs) have been recently observed in a variety of topological materials and often considered to be associated with Weyl fermions that have a defined chirality. Here we report NLMRs in non-Weyl GaAs quantum wells. In the absence of a magnetic field the quantum wells show a transition from semiconducting-like to metallic behaviour with decreasing temperature. We observed pronounced NLMRs up to 9 Tesla at temperatures above the transition and weak NLMRs in low magnetic fields at temperatures close to the transition and below 5 K. The observed NLMRs show various types of magnetic field behaviour resembling those reported in topological materials. We attribute them to microscopic disorder and use a phenomenological three-resistor model to account for their various features. Our results showcase a new contribution of microscopic disorder in the occurrence of novel phenomena. They may stimulate further work on tuning electronic properties via disorder/defect nano-engineering.
We present a microscopic theory for transport of the spin polarized charge density wave with both electrons and holes in the $(111)$ GaAs quantum wells. We analytically show that, contradicting to the commonly accepted belief, the spin and charge motions are bound together only in the fully polarized system but can be separated in the case of low spin polarization or short spin lifetime even when the spatial profiles of spin density wave and charge density wave overlap with each other. We further show that, the Coulomb drag between electrons and holes can markedly enhance the hole spin diffusion if the hole spin motion can be separated from the charge motion. In the high spin polarized system, the Coulomb drag can boost the hole spin diffusion coefficient by more than one order of magnitude.
Spin dephasing via the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) is a major mechanism limiting the electron spin lifetime in III-V zincblende quantum wells. The dephasing can be suppressed in GaAs(111) quantum wells by applying an electric field. The suppression has been attributed to the compensation of the intrinsic SOI associated by the bulk inversion asymmetry (BIA) of the GaAs lattice by a structural induced asymmetry (SIA) SOI term induced by an electric field. We provide direct experimental evidence for this mechanism by demonstrating the transition between the BIA-dominated to a SIA-dominated regime via photoluminescence measurements carried out over a wide range of applied fields. Spin lifetimes exceeding 100~ns are obtained near the compensating electric field, thus making GaAs (111) QWs excellent candidates for the electrical storage and manipulation of spins.
Photoluminescence (PL) and reflectivity spectra of a high-quality InGaAs/GaAs quantum well structure reveal a series of ultra-narrow peaks attributed to the quantum confined exciton states. The intensity of these peaks decreases as a function of temperature, while the linewidths demonstrate a complex and peculiar behavior. At low pumping the widths of all peaks remain quite narrow ($< 0.1$ meV) in the whole temperature range studied, $4 - 30K$. At the stronger pumping, the linewidth first increases and than drops down with the temperature rise. Pump-probe experiments show two characteristic time scales in the exciton decay, $< 10$ps and $15 - 45ns$, respectively. We interpret all these data by an interplay between the exciton recombination within the light cone, the exciton relaxation from a non-radiative reservoir to the light cone, and the thermal dissociation of the non-radiative excitons. The broadening of the low energy exciton lines is governed by the radiative recombination and scattering with reservoir excitons while for the higher energy states the linewidths are also dependent on the acoustic phonon relaxation processes.
Recently a large negative longitudinal (parallel to the magnetic field) magnetoresistance was observed in Weyl and Dirac semimetals. It is believed to be related to the chiral anomaly associated with topological electron band structure of these materials. We show that in a certain range of parameters such a phenomenon can also exist in conventional centrosymmetric and time reversal conductors, lacking topological protection of the electron spectrum and the chiral anomaly. We also discuss the magnetic field enhancement of the longitudinal components of the thermal conductivity and thermoelectric tensors.
Time-resolved optical measurements of electron-spin dynamics in a (110) GaAs quantum well are used to study the consequences of a strongly anisotropic electron g-tensor, and the origin of previously discovered all-optical nuclear magnetic resonance. All components of the g-tensor are measured, and a strong anisotropy even along the in-plane directions is found. The amplitudes of the spin signal allow the study of the spatial directions of the injected spin and its precession axis. Surprisingly efficient dynamic nuclear polarization in a geometry where the electron spins are injected almost transverse to the applied magnetic field is attributed to an enhanced non-precessing electron spin component. The small absolute value of the electron g-factor combined with efficient nuclear spin polarization leads to large nuclear fields that dominate electron spin precession at low temperatures. These effects allow for sensitive detection of all-optical nuclear magnetic resonance induced by periodically excited quantum-well electrons. The mechanism of previously observed Delta m = 2 transitions is investigated and found to be attributable to electric quadrupole coupling, whereas Delta m = 1 transitions show signatures of both quadrupole and electron-spin induced magnetic dipole coupling.