Irradiating a semiconductor with circularly polarized light creates spin-polarized charge carriers. If the material contains atoms with non-zero nuclear spin, they interact with the electron spins via the hyperfine coupling. Here, we consider GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells, where the conduction-band electron spins interact with three different types of nuclear spins. The hyperfine interaction drives a transfer of spin polarization to the nuclear spins, which therefore acquire a polarization that is comparable to that of the electron spins. In this paper, we analyze the dynamics of the optical pumping process in the presence of an external magnetic field while irradiating a single quantum well with a circularly polarized laser. We measure the time dependence of the photoluminescence polarization to monitor the buildup of the nuclear spin polarization and thus the average hyperfine interaction acting on the electron spins. We present a simple model that adequately describes the dynamics of this process and is in good agreement with the experimental data.
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