Spin dynamics in high-mobility two-dimensional electron systems

TL;DR

This study investigates how spin lifetime in high-mobility 2D electron systems is affected by initial spin polarization, electron-electron interactions, and spin-orbit coupling, revealing significant control over spin dynamics for spintronic applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates that increasing initial spin polarization significantly enhances spin lifetime and explores the interplay of Coulomb interactions and spin-orbit fields in anisotropic spin relaxation.

Findings

Spin lifetime increases by an order of magnitude with higher initial polarization.

The Hartree-Fock term acts as an effective magnetic field reducing spin-flip rates.

Spin relaxation anisotropy depends on electron density and spin-orbit interactions.

Abstract

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.